Rodham

March 30, 2020
In this entertaining political fantasy, Sittenfeld (Eligible) imagines Hillary Clinton’s personal and professional life if she and Bill had gone their separate ways instead of marrying. The novel begins with an intimate perspective on historical events: At Wellesley’s 1969 graduation, Hillary feels the exhilaration of speaking her mind in public. Two years later, she meets Bill at Yale Law School. He is handsome, larger than life, proud of his Arkansas roots. She is ambitious, smart, hardworking, and opinionated. They fall in love and discuss marriage, but break up because of Bill’s philandering. Bill runs for president in 1992 but drops out of the race. Hillary, meanwhile, is a year into her first term as senator from Illinois. When she runs for president, in 2016, Bill is one of three primary challengers. Scenes with cameos from Donald Trump prove livelier than familiar elements like Hillary’s chocolate chip cookies, which she brings to a Yale potluck. Still, Sittenfeld movingly captures Hillary’s awareness of her transformation into a complicated public figure (“The feeling was in the collapse, the simultaneity, of how I seemed to others and who I really was”) Readers won’t have to be feminists (though it would help) to relish Sittenfeld’s often funny, mostly sympathetic, and always sharp what-if.

Narrator Carrington MacDuffie offers a savory performance of a novel that reimagines Hillary Clinton's personal and political life had she never married. MacDuffie deploys considerable skill as the story focuses on young Hillary's whirlwind romance with Bill, offering an easygoing pace that allows listeners to relish the delectable sensuality. But when Bill proves less than faithful, Hillary's life swerves down a different path, crippling Bill's political aspirations while raising her own. Seamlessly moving between accents and tones, MacDuffie creates distinct and familiar voices. She unfolds the inner workings of Hillary's civic journey from state senator to presidential bid with refined maturity and a crisp delivery, while allowing listeners an emotional connection with a woman they think they know. A guilty pleasure for Hillary fans. A.K.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine