Ever since I've heard about Curtis Sittenfield's American Wife I've been wary. It's really not due to the fact that it's based on the life of Laura Bush but that it's fiction that is based on a public person while they are still, you know, alive. The long-time dead don't bother me so much, Jane Austen as an amateur detective? I can handle that. But basing a book on Laura Bush, while her husband is still in office no less?