Hillary Rodham, right, and Bill Clinton at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1979. | Photo by Wellesley College/Sygma via Getty Images

What if Hillary had never married Bill? Vox Book Club will find out this July.

As the Vox Book Club sails into July, we’re going to take a moment to wave a fond farewell to the frothy joys of The Princess Bride. We just closed out a fantastic panel discussion on both book and movie with the Cut’s Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz and the Undefeated’s Soraya Nadia McDonald, which covered everything from why Prince Humperdinck is a lost Trump brother to our dream casting for an updated Princess Bride prestige limited cable series (Dev Patel and Zendaya, call your agents). If you missed it, we’ll be posting a recording and a transcript next week, and I highly recommend checking it out.

The Princess Bride dispensed with, we’ll turn ourselves full speed ahead into dealing, in the halo of Independence Day, with American politics. Specifically, the American politics of recent and alternative history.

For the month of July, the Vox Book Club is going to be reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham, an alternate history that tells us what would have happened if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton. On its own merits, Rodham is a juicy, scandalous read, with plenty to say about the way American politics have evolved during the decades the Clinton family has been in public life. (Plus, some oddly intimate sex scenes that in and of themselves are fodder for endless conversation.)

Sign up here to be notified about new book selections, discussions, and related live events.

Here’s the full Vox Book Club schedule for July 2020

Friday, July 10: Discussion of political Real Person Fiction and how Rodham fits into the genre

Friday, July 24: Fact-checking Rodham’s alternate history and a conversation about Hillary Rodham Clinton, the woman, the myth, the politician

Thursday, July 30: Virtual live event, details TBD. Sign up for the Vox Book Club newsletter for more info!


Support Vox’s explanatory journalism

Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.