There was a sense of apprehension about this book. It has gotten a lot of advance publicity. Articles in the press said that it was a thinly disguised story about the real First Lady, Laura Bush.

Curtis Sittenfeld was quoted as saying that it is 85% fiction with the remainder based upon that real person’s life. It’s fiction for obvious reasons. She made up all the conversations.

The book opens as our future First Lady, Alice Blackwell is growing up in Wisconsin. (substitute Wisconsin for Texas). The signature event in her younger days is a tragic car accident where the boy she loved is killed. This creates a chain of events that haunts Alice throughout the book.

She becomes a librarian and meets the aspiring politician Charlie Blackwell. He is the scion of a wealthy political dynasty in Wisconsin. They made their fortune in meat. (substitute meat for oil,etc.)

This unlikely pair falls in love. There’s sex in this book. It’s written in a very realistic style from Alice’s point of view. Charlie drinks a lot. That’s a problem. He makes the famous decision to embrace his family and Christianity while spurning the booze.

And he’s on his way to the highest office in the land. Sittenfeld pulls out some wonderful surprises in this clever and enchanting book. Her First Lady comes off the page as a real person. We like her a lot. Charlie comes off like W – amusing, closed-minded, profane.

This book will be huge, bigger than PREP was for the author.