According to a brief interview at the end of the book, the author read some material about Laura Bush and got fascinated about why a seemingly compassionate and intelligent woman would marry someone like George W. This book with the characters of Alice and Charlie was her fictional response to that question, and like most good fiction, it probably has more truth to it than any non-fiction book written. 
 Alice is a woman haunted by a tragic accident and who doesn't quite understand her own love for the rich, spoiled, smug frat boy she married. But they do love each other, and that's what makes this a book about a marriage in politics rather than a political book with a married couple. 
 Sittenfeld reverses a typical biography (or fake biography) structure by focusing most on the early years of Alice and then her courtship and early marriage. A large chunk of their life together is skipped over or covered in some minor flashbacks, and this is the the time when Charlie runs for governor and then president. 
 I loved the ending with Alice's ultimate conclusions about her relationship to Charlie and the level of responsibility she shares for his presidency as his wife. My only knocks on the book are that there's a sub-plot that came across as soap opera-ish compared to the low key narration of Alice telling her story.