THIS AMERICAN WIFE

PREPPING FOR THE WEST WING

ave I made terrible mistakes?," Alice Black well, Curtis Sittenfeld's lat est prim heroine, asks at the start of this venture into the netherworid of Wasp culture. In Ameri can Wife (Random House), Sittenfeld, the author of the now near-cononic Prep, tells the story of Alice Blackwell, née lindgren, as she lies in bed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next to her snoring, ne'er-do well husband, the presi dent of the United States. A latter-day Persephone, Alice grows up firmly middle-class and mid western, wearing red hair ribbons and suf fering tragedy quietly 'I until she meets Char lie Blackwell, the slick son of a rich, political family, with a business (in this case, meat-not oil), an exclusive summer retreat, and a battle-ax matriarch who bullies from the helm.

Marrying in, Alice descends into prep dom straight from the Handbook: men named Rumpus, houses called Itty-Bitty, and Princeton re unions. Charlie, meanwhile, ends up dabbling in blow, getting a D.U.l., and becoming a born again Christianall before losing the popular presidential vote in 2000 but still finagling his way to becoming POTUS .. . is this starting to sound familiar? As Alice reminds us, "All I did is marry him. You are the ones who gave him power."

FOR AN EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW OF CURTIS SITTENFELDS AMERICAN WIFE, VISIT VF.CON.

ELIZA GRISWOLD