Hillary steps into limelight – once again
SHE SPENT EIGHT years as First Lady of the USA and four as Secretary of State; she survived her husband’s high-profile infidelity and her own fiercely fought but unsuccessful campaign to be President. And yet, even now, after three decades of the world scrutinising her marriage, her political record and her wardrobe, there is still a new way to look at Hillary Clinton.
Over the coming month, our fascination will be fuelled by two new arrivals: one is the docuseries Hillary, airing on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV from 11 June. It uses extensive interviews with the politician to tell her story – from the rousing graduation speech that gave her minor fame at the age of 21, to the challenges of her gruelling presidential run.
But the other project, a fictional account of Hillary’s life, is even more compelling. Rodham, the sixth novel by best-selling author Curtis Sittenfeld, poses a question: what if Hillary hadn’t married Bill? Through a blend of fact and imagination, it tells the tale of the relationship that blossomed between the pair at Yale Law School – fuelled by a well-reported intellectual spark, but also, in Curtis’s version, an intense sexual chemistry. Then, just at the point at which, in real life, Bill and Hillary married, in Rodham, they part ways. We see how things might have panned out for her without him – which inevitably raises the question of how much their real-life marriage may have held her back.
After all, the real Hillary has been dogged by her time as a President’s wife.
She was criticised for not being soft enough, had her business dealings picked over and was scrutinised over Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. ‘I think it’s interesting that she seems to be held more accountable for his interactions with women than he is,’ says Curtis, via Skype from her home in Minnesota. ‘How does that work?’
But it could have been so different. ‘I had this realisation that my [primary school-age] kids don’t know who Bill Clinton is. They don’t know that he’s married to Hillary and that there’s all this baggage associated with him. I started to think, what if that was true for adults too? What if Hillary was just herself, and not this famous spouse?’
In Rodham, we get a thought-provoking glimpse of how someone in her position might feel. We’re with her as she privately grapples with her political aspirations, her desire for Bill, and her anguish over rumours that he has assaulted women (something the real Bill Clinton denies).
This mix of fact and fiction is not an entirely new approach for the novelist; her 2008 book American Wife, about a First Lady, was based on Laura Bush. It was while researching that novel that Curtis read Hillary’s 2003 memoir, Living History.
During Bill’s presidency, Curtis admits, ‘I’d become a little bit disillusioned with both of them.’ Now she looked at Hillary afresh. ‘She has this really impressive, lifelong history of working for the rights of women and children. At that moment I thought, wait a second, maybe some of the negative view I have of her has more to do with me, or the media, than with Hillary herself. I was very excited when she ran for President.’
Did Curtis have any reservations about turning a living woman’s life into fiction? ‘I think I’m a very sympathetic person, and that I’m writing without malice. I don’t feel like this was meant to humiliate Hillary or Bill. It’s trying to get at something specific about this person, but it’s understood to be fictitious. That’s the long answer. The short answer is, yes, I do feel some reservations about what I’m doing, and I think I would have to be lacking a conscience if I didn’t.’
Curtis’s Hillary is a flawed but essentially good person. Still, she thinks the real woman would be unlikely to enjoy Rodham.
‘I could have written a version of the book where maybe I would hear from her, and it would be not at all uncomfortable for her to read. But I made choices that served the book, that were not meant to work toward a budding friendship.
‘I mean, I would love to be friends with Hillary Clinton. But I think, if I were Hillary Clinton, I would not yearn to be friends with me.’
‘Rodham’ by Curtis Sittenfeld (Doubleday) is published in e-book and audio on 19 May, and available to pre-order in hardback (out July)
In an explosive new book, Curtis Sittenfeld imagines what life might have been like if Hillary had never married Bill…