Sittenfeld imagines a world in which Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton. What if Hillary Rodham had turned down Bill Clinton's proposal of marriage? In American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld painted a picture of an ordinary American girl who found herself married to a President - basing it on the life of Laura Bush. In this novel, she takes Hillary Rodham ('You are awfully opinionated for a girl, Hillary'), and explores how her life might have turned out if she had stayed an independent woman.

Hillary is smart, diligent, and a bit plain. Then she goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader - and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No.

How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton? Sittenfeld explores the loneliness, moral ambivalence and iron determination that characterise the quest for high office, as well as the painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world ruled by men.