Susan Wittig Albert has long been a favorite author and is superb at fictional biographies. I am a stickler for accuracy in time and period and the Biographical Afterward was detailed and satisfying. I know exactly what was factual and what was somewhat guessed at.
I will put on my work experience as a social worker to be absolutely and positively amazed at the dysfunctional dynamics of this family. I really had no idea, although I think it was general knowledge that Roosevelt was with a mistress at his death.
I must explore this all some more as it has such parallels to modern politics and its players. In this era we lived in putting these love letters in limbo for years would not be possible and would be very explosive.
The novel was about Lorena Hickok who the author admired but "Hick" is just one of the characters of this drama. Eleanor and FDR were the opposite poles that their friends and loved ones bounced between, or so it seems to me.
The book was more about Hick's feelings for Eleanor, and less about herself, although she was a prominent individual in her own right.
Albert,in her fine afterward does a synopsis of Lorena's life alone and mentions some biographies that I will pursue now.
My curiosity is also aroused about the Roosevelt's marriage and were the early years as dysfunctional as the last 20 or so? Was I so sheltered about these things and this family? Did I rely on my 1950s girlhood reading experience and not really what occurred? Was it just a different era?
Recommended for all who enjoy biographical works that flow like novels, as that is what this one is. Cum Laude , Susan Wittig Albert!
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