Thread Must-Read: Curtis Sittenfeld's 'Rodham'

What if Hillary Rodham — after meeting Bill Clinton at Yale, falling in love with him and following him to Arkansas — had then taken a turn into a different future?

What if — instead of hitching her wagon to Clinton’s star — she had pursued a life as a legal scholar and a political activist with the freedom to put her own driving ambitions first? What if Bill Clinton’s infidelity, his political compromises and his needy charisma hadn’t been Hillary’s burden to carry?

When I interviewed Curtis Sittenfeld — and you’ll hear that conversation this Thursday — I confided that I wasn’t sure I was prepared to revisit 2016 in the midst of a world health crisis and a presidential campaign. I started the novel with some reluctance and soon tumbled fully into the alternative world Sittenfeld created. I believed it when Hillary Rodham anguished over leaving Clinton, knowing she might never love like that again. 

“Did I imagine,” she asks herself, “my life would be full of such emotional extravagance?” Not extravagant passion, perhaps, but a rich and rewarding life.

My Thread must-read is Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel, “Rodham.” Listen to our conversation at 9 a.m. Thursday.