Curtis Sittenfeld in Conversation with Roxane Gay - Rodham Virtual Event
The Atlanta History Center welcomes New York Times bestselling author of “American Wife” and “Eligible,” Curtis Sittenfeld, for a special virtual event for her acclaimed new book, “Rodham,” which imagines a deeply compelling what-might-have-been: What if Hillary Rodham hadn’t married Bill Clinton?
Sittenfield will appear in discussion with Roxane Gay, bestselling author of “Bad Feminist,” “Difficult Women” and “Hunger.”
This event is free and open to the public. Join the discussion via the link below on Tuesday, July 7, at 7:00 p.m. (EST).
A Cappella Books has copies of Sittenfeld’s “Rodham,” available for order online. Paperback editions of Gay’s “Hunger” can be pre-ordered and will be available for after the event. At checkout, choose between the local delivery, curbside pick-up or shipping options. Curbside pick-up and shipping are available to all customers. Local delivery is available to in-town Atlanta neighborhoods only: 30303, 30305, 30306, 30307, 30308, 30309, 30310, 30313, 30316, 30317, 30324, 30030, 30032, 30033, 30002.
Order “Rodham” here:
Pre-order “Hunger” here”
About the Book
In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life Magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she’s attending Yale Law School, and she’s on the forefront of student activism and the women’s rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.
In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton.
But in Curtis Sittenfeld’s powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail—one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life.
Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, “Rodham” is a singular and unforgettable novel.
About the Author
Curtis Sittenfeld is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels “Prep,” “The Man of My Dreams,” “American Wife,” “Sisterland,” and “Eligible,” and the story collection “You Think It, I’ll Say It,” which have been translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post Magazine, Esquire, and “The Best American Short Stories,” of which she was the 2020 guest editor. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and Vanity Fair, and on public radio’s “This American Life.”
