A short life of the author
Curtis Sittenfeld (b. 1975) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Life and Career
Prep (2005) — about a girl from Indiana on scholarship at a New England boarding school — was a bestseller that captured the social dynamics of elite American education with painful precision. American Wife (2008) — loosely based on the life of Laura Bush — is a compassionate, politically nuanced portrait of a woman married to a man whose politics she doesn’t share.
Eligible (2016) — a contemporary retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Cincinnati — and Rodham (2020) — an alternative history in which Hillary Rodham doesn’t marry Bill Clinton — demonstrate her range and her interest in American women’s lives as both private and political.
Major Works and Themes
Sittenfeld writes about women navigating class, ambition, marriage, and social expectation in America. Her fiction is precisely observed, emotionally intelligent, and structurally confident. She is one of the few American novelists who writes about contemporary social life with both commercial appeal and literary seriousness.
Key Works
- Prep (2005)
- American Wife (2008)
- Rodham (2020)
Collecting Sittenfeld
Prep first edition (Random House, 2005) brings $20–$40. Sittenfeld signs at bookshops and literary events.