Audiobook
£0.00
with membership trial

Hardcover
£4.76

Paperback
£9.19

RRP: £9.99 Details

Save: £0.80 (8%)

FREE Returns

FREE delivery Friday, 26 January on your first order to UK or Ireland. Details

Or fastest delivery Tomorrow, 24 January. Order within 2 hrs 33 mins. Details

Select delivery location

In stock

££9.19 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Dispatches from

Amazon

Dispatches from

Amazon

Sold by

Amazon

Sold by

Amazon

Returns

Returnable within 30 days of receipt

Returns

Returnable within 30 days of receipt

Item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund within 30 days of receipt

Read full Amazon return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

Add gift options

FREE delivery 26 - 29 January. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by The Cotswold Library

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Colour:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Curtis Sittenfeld

Follow

American Wife: The acclaimed word-of-mouth bestseller Paperback – 2 July 2009

by Curtis Sittenfeld (Author)

4.0 4,655 ratings

See all formats and editions

Save 5% on any 4 qualifying items | Terms

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"£9.19","priceAmount":9.19,"currencySymbol":"£","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"19","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"U1dgROQv%2Buun35ZigmnofSmv%2BqjWPBqZyfK4TkDg5rkIGUpeHfUVIFH9WpopdxUClxSFfEhdJzrbltK7VLWGxDN7QVSZOw95i0TpFO9z9KNmo%2FhPS4bFCH3k5Fsjewss","locale":"en-GB","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"£3.29","priceAmount":3.29,"currencySymbol":"£","integerValue":"3","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"29","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"U1dgROQv%2Buun35ZigmnofSmv%2BqjWPBqZW2k%2F5c4pUcocnEg%2B493fz6CLYC1CxCyl6kAanPJWTSraZ0JVbFrQSo2Z4fcmxreb5zjiNDDzfQwiZ25IdacKM6hc3M99n0F8XhgRvj4J4Rvz5HD4X98YQ4ZaHjHdzQ3nwu0beNKg5cM8Wl%2BhuGEVgSGuE3nuRisJ","locale":"en-GB","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

By the Sunday Times bestselling author of ROMANTIC COMEDY and PREP

'Honest, wonderful and smart as hell' Guardian
'Curtis Sittenfeld is in a league of her own' Observer

All I did is marry him. You are the ones who gave him power.

Quiet, bookish Alice Blackwell never dreamed of being First Lady. Much less to a President whose politics she doesn't believe in. On perhaps the most important day of her husband's presidency, Alice looks back on the strange and unlikely path that led her to the White House, and to a decision - both treacherous and long overdue - that could jeopardise everything.

Taking inspiration from real life, AMERICAN WIFE is a remarkable portrait of a woman caught between her feelings for her husband, her country, and herself.

'My favourite book of the century' HADLEY FREEMAN, GUARDIAN

Print length

656 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Black Swan
Publication date

2 July 2009
Dimensions

12.7 x 3.9 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0552775541
ISBN-13

978-0552775540
See all details

Frequently bought together

American Wife: The acclaimed word-of-mouth bestseller

£9.19

In stock

Sent from and sold by Amazon.

+

Rodham: The SUNDAY TIMES bestseller asking: What if Hillary hadn’t married Bill?

£8.27

In stock

Sent from and sold by Amazon.

+

Prep: The startling coming-of-age novel by the Sunday Times bestselling author of AMERICAN WIFE

£10.11

Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 26

In stock

Sent from and sold by Amazon.

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your basket.

Try again!

Details

Added to Basket

Choose items to buy together.

Curtis Sittenfeld
6,080
Paperback
43 offers from £1.00
Curtis Sittenfeld
10,530
Hardcover
25 offers from £7.99
Curtis Sittenfeld
2,900
Paperback
31 offers from £0.57
Caroline O'Donoghue
5,898
Hardcover
32 offers from £8.23
Louise Kennedy
10,682
Paperback
25 offers from £4.34
Lauren Bravo
244
Paperback
19 offers from £6.74

Product description

Review

Such an accomplished work of fiction... a thoughtful and compelling examination of the mechanics of family and marriage... Knowing and knowledgeable, yet also inventive and original, American Wife is a thrilling combination of history and surprises ― Guardian

Superbly well-written - one of the most absorbing books of the year ― Evening Standard

Thoroughly enjoyable. The plot is beautifully paced, the writing quick, clear, absorbing... A sweeping saga ― The Times

A powerful, utterly compelling and strangely moving fictional account of a First Lady who bears more than a passing resemblance to Laura Bush ― Daily Mirror

I was utterly absorbed in this story of a political marriage and a wife who has her own reasons. Curtis Sittenfeld has thrown a powerful light on small town America and its misunderstood values

My favourite book of the year ― Kate Atkinson

A quietly riveting parable... thought-provoking, entertaining and full of subtle reflections on class and marriage ― Daily Mail

A classic story, with a langorous pace and a fierce literary integrity... Sittenfeld has provided a plausible secret history of an American embarrassment - and a grand entertainment

American Wife is easily one of the best books written so far this century. It is honest, wonderful and smart as hell, the kind of book that you try to eke out to make it last as long as possible ― Guardian

This is one of the finest American novels of 2008 ― New Statesman

Curtis Sittenfeld is an amazing writer, and American Wife is a brave and moving novel about the intersection of private and public life in America. Ambitious and humble at the same time, Sittenfeld refuses to trivialize or simplify people, whether real or imagined

The scope and detail of American Wife are reminiscent of Richard Russo. Like Russo, she creates characters from the ground up, ancestry, neighborhood, culture and all... Her characters are carefully rendered and the story is well-constructed ― Los Angeles Times

Vastly entertaining... It is an intelligent, well-crafted, psychologically astute novel ― New York Sun

Weaves fate, family, marriage, wealth and power into an absorbing story ― Mail on Sunday

Utterly brilliant

This engagingly candid First Lady is belssed with so many attractive qualities that her story grips from the very beginning. Full marks to Curtis Sittenfeld ― Sunday Telegraph

Best book: I was on the beach in Croatia recently and it was the one book that quite a few women were lying there reading. It was surreal ― Best

I truly can't believe what a great writer Sittenfeld is, she's fantastic ― The Herald

A deft, funny and revealing story... This clever and convincing portrait of human frailty is a reminder that perhaps none of us is what we might seem. An honest and insightful story of a marriage, and a refreshing take on recent history ― Psychologies

When people ask for book recommendations I often press Curtis Sittenfeld’s magnificent third novel, American Wife, into their hands. This loosely fictionalised life of former first lady Laura Bush has a rare and magical combination of accessibility, wit and serious thinking. ― The Times

About the Author

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling Rodham. Other novels include American Wife and Prep, both bestsellers and longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, and the acclaimed short story collections You Think It, I'll Say It and Help Yourself. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld was also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Midwest. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Black Swan (2 July 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 656 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0552775541
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0552775540
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 3.9 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 10,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 87 in Biographical Fiction (Books)
- 197 in Political Fiction (Books)
- 587 in Women's Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
4.0 4,655 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Curtis Sittenfeld

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of the novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, and Sisterland, which have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her nonfiction has been published widely, including in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and Glamour, and broadcast on public radio’s This American Life. A native of Cincinnati, she currently lives with her family in St. Louis.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5

4,655 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

brenda blatchford

A good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2023

Verified Purchase

Good story , it kept me reading when I should have been doing other things!

Helpful

100wordreviewer

Curious but mostly readable tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2023

Verified Purchase

I enormously enjoyed Curtis Sittenfield's "Prep". I wasn't sure what to expect from this novel, which is loosely based on the life of a real-world US president's wife.

To be honest, I found the first half of the book well written, but a bit slow. I would have given up, except that a friend had recommended the book. The fact it's loosely based on a real person I found positively weird - like an intrusion on that person's privacy, while speculating wildly in such a way as to make clear it's fictional. It felt somehow mean. In the second half, however, the narrative grew stronger and I was carried along nicely.

For: great if you want a speculative, fictionalised analysis of someone's life. A detailed look at small-time America and social mores of the '50s and '60s. Against: a bit of a slow read in parts.

Helpful

Bookworm

In two minds about this

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 May 2023

Verified Purchase

I’ve been bingeing the author’s works and came to this. Again I’m unsure about the ethics of using someone’s real life circumstances in a novel in this way - somehow it felt more intrusive here than it did in Rodham, I suppose because the real-life event that is fictionalised early in the book is such a shocking thing, and the speculation about its aftermath went to some really dark places in a way I found quite disturbing. I didn’t love this novel as much as the other books by CS I’ve read - trying to analyse why, I think it’s also partly because “Alice” is a quieter, less charismatic character than Hillary Clinton, and however skilful the author is, I kept thinking about the real Charlie Blackwell and struggled to understand how an intelligent and decent woman could find such a person attractive, let alone marry him; in contrast, it was very easy to see what drew Hillary to Bill. But I did enjoy some aspects of the book, especially the portrayal of Charlie’s truly horrific family. They dropped out of the story towards the end, which was a shame.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Helen Musson

Brilliant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2023

Brilliant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 December 2023

Verified Purchase

Very readable with some fascinating insights into life as first lady but also the culture of middle class Americans in the mid west.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 August 2023

Verified Purchase

I disliked it because it kept awake most of the night as I simply had to know what happened next!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Intelligently written novel which is thought provoking but a bit too long

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 March 2019

Verified Purchase

I had been recommended this book by a friend and I'd been looking forward to getting round to reading it. I knew a little about the links to Laura Bush's life but was aware this was a novel.
From the start, I found myself connecting with Alice and thought that her characters developed naturally as the plot progressed.
It's a very long novel and is full of detail. I found it very compelling once I got hooked. The length of the book is not completely necessary and I felt that it could have been reduced down considerably. I only had a few minutes here and there to start the book and that didn't work - once I got a few good sessions of time then the characters worked their ways into my head and I enjoyed it from then on.
I found that I did some brief research about the Bush's and was fascinated by the parallels. Many of the significant life events are factual and the timings are the same as well. The author has very cleverly added the dialogue and the emotion to give an extra dimension to the facts.
There were a few sections that I felt the author dragged out and would have been much better being shortened but loved most of it. Particularly fascinating is the references to the massive world events going on around the life of the couple at the centre of the story - they are just one couple but the same consequences are being felt by many.
Laura Bush could not have been as candid in print as this book is but I hope that she has read it and approves. It is an intelligent novel with plenty to make the reader think and an insight into the head of a person with a famous facade.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

E S Chrystall

Long and turgid

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 May 2022

Verified Purchase

It starts brightly enough, but then quickly gets bogged down in dull, overly descriptive detail with unsympathetic and two-dimensional characters. The story is implausible and the writing just felt immature to me and in need of a good, firm edit. I got to the end, just, but I couldn’t wait to get there.

Helpful

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	AbeBooks Books, art & collectables	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Download Audiobooks	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	Amazon Home Services Experienced pros Happiness Guarantee	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities

Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Deep Discounts Open-Box Products	Amazon Business Service for business customers

	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food

Buy new: £9.19£9.19 FREE delivery: Friday, Jan 26 Dispatches from: Amazon Sold by: Amazon

Buy used £3.29

Follow the author

American Wife: The acclaimed word-of-mouth bestseller Paperback – 2 July 2009

Purchase options and add-ons

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Product description

Review

About the Author

Product details

About the author

Curtis Sittenfeld

Customer reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Buy new:

£9.19

FREE delivery: Friday, Jan 26

Dispatches from: Amazon

Sold by: Amazon

Buy used

£3.29