What is the appeal of Curtis Sittenfeld?

I really don't understand why Curtis Sittenfeld is such a popular author.*

Amazon.com named her latest novel, American Wife, as one of its best of 2008, and it made the New York Times Notable list** (although I was pleased to note that reviewers at both Publishers' Weekly and Bookmarks magazine called it "uneven" and providing a "pat, unsatisfactory" answer to some of its key questions). You know this novel; Sittenfeld herself describes it thus:

"American Wife is a work of fiction loosely inspired by the life of an American first lady. Her husband, his parents, and certain prominent members of his adminstration are recognizable. All other characters in the novel are products of the author's imagination, as are the incidents concerning them."

The first lady in question is Laura Bush; Sittenfeld got a lot of her information from the biography The Perfect Wife by Ann Gerhart. (Her characters are named Alice Lindgren and Charlie Blackwell, and they're from Wisconsin, not Texas.) I don't have a problem, really, with Sittenfeld's writing; she's a competent, if not graceful, prose stylist, and you can actually get through the first 100 pages of this novel pretty easily and quickly. But here's the problem: Laura Bush is boring. So any book you base on her is going to be boring too. And even if you don't think she's boring, she's a woman who clearly and literally beds down with evil every night.*** Either way, is that a character you want to read about?

Give this one a pass. Sittenfeld does not need to be rewarded for her average prose and her "ripped from the headlines" plot device, which smacks ickily of a Jodi Picoult-like move to capitalize on news headlines and current affairs.

*Full disclosure: I've not been fond of Sittenfeld ever since her catty review of Melissa Bank's novel The Wonder Spot. Which, by the way, is about ten times the novel that American Wife is.

**Why am I still bothering to read New York Times Notable books? And I find it hilarious that Publishers' Weekly provided a much more astute review of this book than did the Times.

***Literally. Do you want to read and think about Laura and George having sex? I didn't.

Comments

[Becky]

Okay, great, you just saved me the trouble of reading this. Now I can get off the list at the library.

[Laura]

Hah, hah -- still laughing! Which should help me get through the work day!

[Melanie]

Thank you. Now I can quit reading this thing. It's been by my bedside for months half read. It is a boring book. I read Sittenfeld's first book, Prep, and didn't like that one much either. She keeps getting such good reviews that I figured I was missing something with Prep and that I should try again with American Wife. But I'm done now.

[Citizen Reader]

Becky, Melanie:
Always glad to be of service, especially in the service of chucking a bad book off our TBR piles. However, Becky, whenever I convince you not to read something, I always secretly hope you will so I can hear what YOU think of it! Melanie, I couldn't agree with you more. I maintain: why are publishers and reviewers so in love with Sittenfeld? I was completely bored by "Prep," too. And then when she had the gall to take on Melissa Bank? Grrrr...

Laura,
Always glad to provide a laugh. Now don't go imagining George and Laura (eww) or it really will be hard to make it through your work day!

[katharine]

I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY. PREP was stinky, so I didn't even go down that American Wife road. Thanks for saying it so well.

[adrienne]

See, I actually really liked Prep. I didn't like the second one as much, Man of My Dreams or whatever. But it was okay. This, I couldn't get 50 pages in. I don't know what happened since Prep. sigh

[Citizen Reader]

Adrienne,
See, I should have had the sense to stay away from this one--I'll admit that I got about fifty pages into "Prep" and that just wasn't for me either. I didn't think it was badly done, just not for me. And it had such a great cover!

Mainly I was annoyed because this one got such good press and was another good seller for Sittenfeld. Isn't that depressing when you get a book by an author you've enjoyed previously and it doesn't do much for you? That happened to me with Anne Tyler's "Amateur Marriage," although she redeemed herself a bit with "Digging to America."

[The Laundress]

Um, so let us just get past the point that rather many people think Jodi Picoult is a fine writer. Then we can mosey over to Curtis? Nah, not worth the waddle. Only thing I like about Laura Bush: she smokes. Still. Unabashed. Just like Barack. It just is not socially acceptable nor widely reported. I think I have repeated this, gleaned from flipping through pages of a Bush bio -- Laura told the sporty Bushes, when asked what she "did" (they meant sportswise): I read. And I smoke..

[Citizen Reader]

Well, Laundress, the smoking is somewhat of an endearing habit. But she has the luxury--she's rich and has good health insurance (I'm guessing). See? I can find something about every aspect of Laura Bush to be bitter about. :)

I like your idea. I'm putting Curtis on the shelf with Jodi and that's a shelf I'm never going to revisit.

I wonder if Laura still reads. I'd like to send her Vincent Bugliosi's "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," if so. But maybe she's more of a novel reader.