“American Wife” is the bold third fictional novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the best-selling “Prep” (2005), which portrays a thinly veiled First Lady Laura Bush. Sittenfeld is sure to come under fire for blurring the lines between fiction and reality but the book is as winning as it is confident. She manages to craft out of the first-person narration a compelling, human voice that is full of kindness and decency.

It’s all fiction, but major events mirror Mrs. Bush’s life, including a car accident that kills a friend was the inspiration for the fictional life of Sittenfeld’s heroine, Alice Blackwell. In the fictional novel, the accident haunts Alice for most of her adult life and became the subject of questions and speculation when it was revealed during her husband’s presidential re-election.

In a memoir told entirely in the first person, Alice Blackwell relays her unlikely ascent to the White House from her humble Wisconsin beginnings. She conveys in convincing, thoroughly riveting detail a life far more complicated than it appears on the surface—the moment she discovered that her beloved grandmother was a lesbian; a tragic, life-changing car accident she had as a teenager; the friendship she willingly sacrificed with her best friend when she started dating the good-humored, athletic Charlie Blackwell; and her uncomfortable initiation into the tight-knit, immensely wealthy Blackwell family, run with unflappable authority by its formidable matriarch. No one is more surprised than Alice when her hard-drinking, sports-team-owning husband morphs into a born-again Christian with political ambitions. Suddenly, Alice’s life is no longer her own as her every move is parsed for its political implications.

Laura Bush has finally opened up publicly about the mysterious car accident she had when she was 17 in her new book, “Spoken From the Heart”, that will be released on May 4, 2010. In it, Mrs. Bush describes in vivid detail the circumstances surrounding the crash that claimed the life of a high school friend on a dark country road in Midland, Tex.

To read more about “Spoken From The Heart” by Laura Bush, visit NYTimes.com.

For more information about “American Wife” by Curtis Sittenfeld, visit CurtisSittenfeld.com.

My eyes are very sensitive and gets red and irritated easily, especially during spring season when pollination is at its peak. For as long as I can remember, I’ve alternated between Visine and ClearEyes but they’re just not cutting it for me anymore.

So I picked up some new eye drops called Rohto Ice and aside from the initial burn when it comes in contact with my eyes — feels like getting minty soap in your eye — they cleared up the redness, dryness and irritation almost instantly. The trick is to keep your eyes closed for about a minute after applying because as soon as it touches your eyes and has air contact, it stings like crazy! Also, the flat bottle design is a plus because it fits nicely in my clutch or pocket.

There are four lines of Rohto eye drops — Cool, Arctic, Ice, and Hydra.

• Cool is a general purpose eye drop that combines redness relief with a gentle cooling sensation.
• Ice relieves redness while also soothing itch, irritation and burn with an intense cooling sensation.
• Arctic relieves strained, overworked eyes and relieves redness with a long-lasting cooling sensation.
• NEW Hydra is specifically formulated to lubricate and provide long-lasting moisture for dry, irritated eyes with the closest hydration to normal tears, while also providing the brand’s signature “kick” with cooling menthol.

You can buy Rohto eye drops at most convenient stores such as Kroger, Walmart, Safeway, CVS, Walgreens, and RiteAid. It is also available online at drugstore.com.