Why bother writing your own memoirs when someone can write them for you? This is the case of Curtis Sittenfeld, Laura Bush and “American Wife.” The writer, the First Lady/the subject and the novel.

Although loosely inspired by President Bush’s spouse’s life, the book mixes fiction and fact, transforming the work into a deeply-researched, juicy narrative.

The hiding-from-the-public-eye, reticent Laura Bush may actually seem at first glance an astonishing pick for the subject of a 570-page confessional novel. However, the poignant tale of 17-year-old Laura Bush’s accident, when she ran a stop sign in Midland , Texas , and got a high school sweetie killed, is the perfect fictitious lure for a writer who usually deals with adolescent trouble. The author of “Prep” and “The Man of My Dreams,” nonetheless, did not write Laura Bush’s biography, so do not take Curtis Sittenfeld’s creative writing for the First Lady’s real life story.

Charlie Blackwell, the writer’s substitute for President George W. Bush, is an unconstrained, smirking, unrefined, yet good-natured guy whose “ambitions exceed his talent.” Alice Lindgren Blackwell, on the other hand, Sittenfeld’s stand-in for Laura Bush, copes with problems much better than her husband.

The author actually portrays her two characters in bed. However, further than the intrinsic tendency to unwholesomeness of depicting the First Lady’s sexual adventures, it’s hard to believe that this standoffish character would provide such details for the story.

Alice ’s nature is self-effacing and polished. Her account is split into four precise sections, each headed by the address where she used to live at the time. The first three are in her home state of Wisconsin , while the prologue and final section are set at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

In spite of the fact that “American Wife” looks into in-depth matters concerning marriage and responsibility, it is the roundabout queries about whether the president really is “incompetent and foolish” that might spark controversy.