#6Degrees Of Separation: From Rodham by Curtis Sittenfield to Foe by J.M. Coetzee

Posted on by whatcathyreadnext

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld in which the author imagines what might have happened had Hilary Rodham NOT married Bill Clinton.

Given she DID marry Bill Clinton and become First Lady, my first link in the chain is to another First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. White Houses by Amy Bloom tells the story of the friendship between Eleanor and reporter, Lorena Hickok.

A book which involves an extra-marital relationship with a future occupant of the White House, namely Dwight D. Eisenhower, is Ike and Kay by James MacManus. It’s a fictionalized account of the real-life affair between Eisenhower and his wartime driver, Kay Summersby.

Back to another First Lady, this time Jacqueline Kennedy. In her latest book, The Second Marriage, Gill Paul tells the story of the relationship between Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis.

If we’re talking multiple marriages, then we need look no further than King Henry VIII of England. In the latest book in her Six Tudor Queens series, Katheryn Howard: The Tainted Queen, Alison Weir explores the tragic life of wife number five.

A character mentioned (briefly) in the book is Thomas Cromwell, the subject of Hilary Mantel’s monumental trilogy. Like the first book in the series, Wolf Hall, its successor, Bring Up The Bodies, won the Man Booker Prize. In doing so, Mantel became the first woman to win the prize twice. (Will she make it three in a row this year?)

The first author to win the prize twice, though, was J.M. Coetzee (in 1983 and again in 1999). His novel Foe, which I studied as part of my Open University English MA (you know, intertextuality and all that) is a reinvention of the story of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

This month we’ve travelled from 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue to a desert island via some matrimonial shenanigans. Where did your chain take you?

17 thoughts on “#6Degrees Of Separation: From Rodham by Curtis Sittenfield to Foe by J.M. Coetzee”

  4. Wait… The Second Marriage by Gill Paul… is that another title for her “Jackie & Maria”? If so… oops… I DNF that one. I was not happy with her portrayal of either of these women… plus, some glaring mistakes about Churchill and JFK bothered me too much to finish reading it. Oh well… great chain all the same… I like the 1st Lady connections.

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  8. Bravo!! I’m hoping to work Ike/Kay in this year. And, Ike and Kay–have your read The General’s Women by Susan Wittig Alexander? No pressure to read, but if interested here is my review–https://hopewellslibraryoflife.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/review-the-generals-women-by-susan-wittig-albert/

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