CURTIS: Well, I mean, just back up a little bit in terms of, you know, delving into a little more detail about what in the novel is based on reality and what’s not. The book has four sections – four long sections. And each one of them is built around a real life event in the Bush’s life. But then everything – all the sort of smaller stuff, the scenes, the character, the dialogue, the relationships, all that stuff — is made up. And so I don’t want to be sort of overly coy. I admit that in the first section, the defining event is that this character Alice has this awful car accident and, you know, accidentally kills a male classmate. But the thing for me is that Laura Bush is very intriguing. But she’s also a kind of unknowable. You know, she seems to be a private person but especially private given how visible she is and what a public life she leads. And so I don’t really pretend that I know what goes on in Laura Bush’s head. But, to me, fiction was the only way to sort of explore what your life would be like if some of these things had happened to you. Or, what might you feel. And so, you know, I don’t think that any biography of Laura Bush can get very close. But it can’t sort of truly tell us what’s in her heart or her mind. And I think that fiction can sort of make up people that have these real-life counterparts and think, “Well, what is it like for these fictitious characters?”

LESLEY: Did you talk to people who knew Laura Bush? Did you talk to psychiatrists about what a person who experienced these things that you talk about in the book, might —?

CURTIS: Well, I did do a fair amount of research. I’ve talked to a couple people who’ve known Laura Bush. There’s one person I know who sort of knew her socially several decades ago. And then there are a few people who’ve sort of been in her presence or interviewed her. But I don’t know anyone who’s currently in her inner circle. And I actually didn’t formally interview anyone about her while writing this book. But I did read a lot of books. And if you are sort of curious about Laura Bush, the biography that I particularly recommend is The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush. And it’s by a Washington Post reporter/editor named Ann Gerhart. And that biography — I already liked Laura Bush before I read it, but I think it helped shape the way that I see her.

LESLEY: You know, when I read American Wife, believe me, when you read it, you do feel that you’re inside – not Alice’s head, but Laura Bush’s head. And I kept saying, “Oh, my God! This is an invasion of privacy! Is it legal to break into the First Lady’s head?” I mean, I did. I kept thinking it was Laura Bush and I knew it wasn’t. I knew it was fiction. But, I don’t know, when you’re reading it you – you, Curtis, have transposed us into that woman’s head – the real woman. So I suppose it’s a tour de force in that sense.

CURTIS: Well, actually it’s interesting because someone did say to me recently, the reason this book is a violation is everything in it is so plausible and so believable.

LESLEY: Exactly.

CURTIS: But this is the thing. I mean, there’s so much written about the Bush’s and pop culture.