Description

‘This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping’ STYLIST

‘Startlingly good. One of my favourite writers’ KATE ATKINSON

A BOOK OF THE YEAR in Guardian, Stylist, BBC, Cosmo and Irish Times
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‘Awfully opinionated for a girl’ is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb.

Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that’s the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader- and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No.

How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton?

With her sharp but always compassionate eye, Sittenfeld explores the loneliness, moral ambivalence and iron determination that characterise the quest for high office, as well as the painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world ruled by men.
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‘A lot of fun. A wonderful sad dream of what might have happened’ GUARDIAN

‘It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, i found myself saying Oh My God’ OBSERVER

‘An explosive new book’ GRAZIA

‘Getting inside a living person’s head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE’ BBC CULTURE

‘An ingenious yet plausible glimpse of an alternative reality’ THE SPECTATOR

‘Sittenfeld’s RODHAM offers the cartharsis of uncomplicated regret’ NEW YORKER

‘A nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any in recent memory’ NPR

‘Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld’s Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She’s a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She’s whoever she wants to be’ O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

‘Of all the SLIDING DOORS fantasies offered by the last 40 years of American office, this may be the most mouth-watering. THE BIG ISSUE

‘Ridiculously entertaining’ FINANCIAL TIMES

Publisher Review

A counterfactual novel ... throbs with energy * TLS * As Hillary finds her groove, so the momentum and entertainment builds, as does your admiration for how ingeniously and plausibly Sittenfeld has re-written the script * DAILY MAIL * Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld's Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She's a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She's whoever she wants to be * THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * 'Getting inside a living person's head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE' * BBC CULTURE * 'RODHAM explores the mysterious territory between the inner and outer lives of a person who has long been a source of fascination, adulation and loathing' * FINANCIAL TIMES * 'By tilting history on its side, Sittenfeld makes Hillary seem a fresh character and remarkably sympathetic' * EVENING STANDARD * 'An ingenious yet plausible glimpse of an alternative reality, and so involving that it occasionally comes as a shock to realise that there is a different reality, and we are living in it' * THE SPECTATOR * Her ear is attuned to inconvenient truths and double standards, particularly misogyny in America. She specialises in awkward encounters and surprise shifts in power * THE NEW STATESMAN * This isn't just fiction as fantasy, this is fiction as therapy. A serious work of literary fiction designed to rally the spirits of liberal readers * SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE * Gleefully abandons biographical analysis for thought experimentation * TIME * Hugely enjoyable * WALL STREET JOURNAL * A nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any in recent memory about the aims and limits of fiction * NPR * While telling a compelling story, RODHAM provides an insightful analysis of the function of sexim in our political discourse. Sittenfeld is at her wittiest when recreating the men who dominate American politics * WASHINGTON POST * Sittenfeld's RODHAM offers the catharsis of uncomplicated regret * THE NEW YORKER * An explosive new book * GRAZIA * A lot of fun. A wonderful, sad dream of what might have happened * GUARDIAN * This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping * STYLIST *