below the surface. She has Alice at 16 in a freak accident at a road junction in which she kills the high school football star who is her boyfriend. Laura Bush at 17 killed her high school crush in an identical accident.

On the campaign trail in 2000, the real Laura Bush lowered her guard enough to say that the accident "was crushing, for the family involved as well as for me". In American Wife, Alice soothes her grief by having sex with her dead boyfriend's best friend, doggy-style: "He pulled off my pants and underwear at the same time... and then I was naked except for my socks, which were white with lace trim. He tugged me upward and flipped me over, and when he said, 'No, you have to be on your knees,' it was the first time either of us had spoken in several minutes."

If Dubya was still running for office his Religious Right base would be

even more shocked by Alice's abortion. "'Isn't it - I hestitated. 'Isn't it illegal?'" Grandma, who has insisted, replies: "'Certainly, and it happens all the time. You can't legislate human nature.'" To make matter worse, young Alice discovers that Grandma is a lesbian when she catches her in flagrante with the abortion doctor.

Sittenfeld, who lives with a boyfriend in Philadelphia, wrote an article for Salon claiming that while her politics were "flaming liberal" and she loathed Dubya's regime, she loved Laura. She described her as "an easy heroine to root for - smart and nice, but just flawed enough (she still sneaks cigarettes!) to remain likeable".

We can only speculate on whether Sittenfeld's novelist instinct for character is as sure as her instinct for a bestseller.