*** As heard on BBC Radio Four’s Book Club with James Naughtie***’Honest, wonderful and smart as hell’ Guardian’Curtis Sittenfeld is in a league of her own’ ObserverAll 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; 656 pages; Published: 02/07/2009