The new (fictional) book from Curtis Sittenfeld, author of board school bible Prep, is American Wife, the thinly veiled retelling of Laura Bush's life that most gossip types would love to believe the White House is very concerned about. But when the book hits in September, it will be a blip on the media radar; Sittenfeld will be lucky to score a sit down on The Early Show. Her main character, Alice Blackwell, is a librarian whose husband Charlie finds himself manning the Oval Office. Blackwell learns her grandmother is a lesbian (this is taboo), kills her high school sweetheart at 16 (sort of like Laura did when she was involved in a fatal car accident), sleeps with his brother, finds herself in a family way, and aborts the fetus (this would anger pro-life types, like Laura Bush). And then there are the sex scenes, like the one of Bush — sorry, Charlie — finding himself between his wife's legs. Reading it makes us very uncomfortable, because we like our president unethical and stupid, not horny and giving of himself.

He bent his head to kiss my sternum, my navel and belly … to open me up, and he brought his face in and was licking me, he was licking me firmly and repeatedly, and it seemed both difficult to believe (Charlie Blackwell's face burrowed between my legs?) and also entirely inevitable: beyond logic and language and decorum…. His cheeks between my thighs, his bobbing head, and his earnest assiduous lapping—very quickly, it was too much to bear, and I gasped and cried out. It was like tremors, and I felt my thighs clenching around his head, and when he came up a few seconds later and kissed my forehead, I said, 'I hope I didn't suffocate you,' and he said, 'I can't think of a better way to go.'

[Radar]