Tag Archives: Laura Bush

You Think It, I’ll Say It

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41DEW3Ka+yL._SX328_BO1,204,203,200_A few good short stories in my old New Yorkers by Allegra Goodman (“FAQs”) in a September, 2017 issue and one by Curtis Sittenfeld  (“Show Don’t Tell”  in a June, 2017 issue, reminded me to download Sittenfeld’s new book of short stories – You Think It, I’ll Say it – a collection of short stories, to Audible.  So far the stories are racier than expected, but with quiet deadpan endings that don’t always register with this listener.  I have been halfway through the next story before realizing I missed the ending of the former.  I could use a gong or a bell to signal the next story starting, but each has a unique and identifiable perspective on the character’s condition – confusion, betrayal, rage, disappointment, regret…

Characters are judgmental, while believing others are secretly judging them.  “Gender Studies” is the  story of a newly single professor having the “anthropological experience” of a one-night stand with a Trump-supporting working-class bus driver.  In “A Regular Couple,”  two women meet again years after high school – one the ugly duckling growing into a successful beauty and the other the popular pretty girl turning into a drudge.  Both are on their honeymoon.  Resentments flair and the final, petty act of revenge horribly satisfying. Sittenfeld’s characters are not very nice but very real.

Susan Dominus in her review for the New York Times says

“In the lives of Sittenfeld’s characters, the lusts and disappointments of youth loom large well into middle age, as insistent as a gang of loud, showy teenagers taking up all the oxygen in the room…The women of “You Think It, I’ll Say It” are, as a group, a demanding breed. They often assume the worst in their imagined adversaries. Sometimes they are wrong, but they are right about just enough (and funny enough) that we forgive them. And, because they know they need absolution for their own worst motives, we forgive those, too.”

Reese Witherspoon has optioned the book for the screen, and Sittenfeld is busy finalizing her next novel, due out in 2019 – she will be imagining how Hillary Clinton’s life might have played out if she had turned down Bill’s marriage proposal and never married him.  I can’t wait.

 

Review of Sisterland

 

 

 

First Women

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9780062439659_p0_v3_s192x300Who doesn’t indulge in a little gossip now and then?  Kate Andersen Brower reveals the secrets of “The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies” in  First Women.  When I heard about this book on a morning news show, I downloaded the ebook, read the sample, and was hooked.

Not a biography like Jean Baker’s Mary Todd Lincoln or a soulful memoir like Laura Bush’s Spoken From the Heart, Brower’s book focuses on a small group of first ladies of a generation, from Jacqueline Kennedy to Michelle Obama, and connects them by making comparisons on their experiences, backgrounds, husbands, and personalities. Not one to avoid the snide comment, Brower throws in a few from staffers, but most of her “reporting” is respectful, as she offers an inside look to their lives as political wives and mothers.  Whether the conclusions she draws in her commentary are accurate or not seems irrelevant.

When you read a People magazine story, you expect exaggeration and a little nudging of the truth, none of which takes away from the fun of reading it, so my expectations for First Women were low. Yet, despite the gossipy tone, Brower manages to tap into the real person behind each persona, as she recalls poignant moments in their lives – some public, some private.  Although Brower cites pages of references and primary sources for each chapter, including White House staffers, most of her conclusions are drawn from observation and letters.

Chapter titles add to the trade fiction feel: “The Good Wife,” Keep Calm and Carry on,” “Supporting Actors,” “The Political Wife.”  Citing the dislike of one woman for another (Michelle Obama for Hillary Clinton), or the unlikely bonding of two women (Laura Bush and Michelle Obama) in the chapter titled “Bad Blood,” seems petty  – but has caught the attention of the media more than other parts of the book.

The book is long, going through chapters with titles carrying each woman through the beginnings of her husband’s political career to the ultimate “prize” – the White House. Most of the information is public, as Brower recounts important moments in each presidency, but the private revelations offer new perspectives on each woman.  And the album of pictures at the back of the book is worth a look, if only to see them in their forgotten younger days.

Rosalynn Carter, who comes across well in Brower’s dissection, noted:

“First ladies are bound together by having had the experience of living in the White House and all that involves, but I’m not sure we would call the relationship among first ladies a sisterhood.  About the only time we are ever together is when a new presidential library is established or for a funeral.”

 

Related Reviews:

from Ann Beattie’s Imagination – Mrs. Pat Nixon

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A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, with her own collection of short stories making the best seller list (see the review below), Ann Beattie has imagined Pat Nixon’s life in a fictionalized version of the former first lady’s life and thoughts – Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life – to be published this month.  Not the first time a First Lady has recently been subjected to conjecture:  Laura Bush in Curtis Sittenfeld’s An American Wife, Hilary Clinton in Sue Miller’s The Senator’s Wife.  Monica Ali even resurrected Princess Diana with a new life in Untold Story.

In her article for the New York Times, Me and Mrs. Nixon, Beattie offers her rationale for creating her own scrutiny of Richard Nixon’s wife – a seeming paragon of old-fashioned values, married to a man with no values.  What must have been going on in her head?  How did she manage to fade so effectively into the background – even behind the intensity of her daughters?

Beattie offered a taste of what to expect in her recent excerpt in The New Yorker – Starlight.  The book might be fun to read, but, like others in this genre, it could be hard to remember it’s fiction.

  • Read the review of Ann Beattie – the New Yorker Stories: here

First Ladies Write

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One of the perks of being First Lady – besides wearing designer clothes and getting your hair done every day – is that after you become a former (not an “ex”), you can write your book.

Rosalynn Carter, never the typical first lady, and still hammering away at houses for the unfortunate with her former president/husband, has a new book on mental health, Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis. Both Carters are prolific, but this publication seems particularly timely. http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/library/carterbi.phtml

Laura Bush, the most recent former, just published her memoirs, Spoken from the Heart, with lots of gossip and the revelation of how her husband stopped drinking – haven’t we heard that story already?

Sue Miller’s The Senator’s Wife was a fictionalized version of a political wife, with lots of juicy references that seemed to point to Hilary Clinton’s “stand-by-your-man” marriage.  Those of us who needed vindication finally get it here.   More satisfying than Hilary Clinton’s own Living History.

Miller’s most recent, The Lake Shore Limited, has nothing to do with politics and moves in the circles of Vermont and Boston – looks like a good read – on my pile now.