Good Reads / Community Library Notes
White House
Amy Bloom
Review by Priscilla Comen
White House
Amy Bloom
Review by Priscilla Comen
White Houses, by Amy Bloom, is the romantic fiction story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, “Hick." It began in 1932 when Hick was a reporter writing about Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign. Hick grew up poor in South Dakota and tells this tale in her down-home country dialect.
Hick was a teen-ager when she joined the circus. She describes in detail the “freaks” she met and bunked with: the lobster -clawed girl and the scaly alligator-skinned girl. They all felt the rubes who stared at them were the real freaks. She wrote about President Herbert Hoover and the depression, how he molested the veterans, and how he couldn’t handle the job. Then came FDR with empathy and ideas. Hick tells the stories of her days and nights with Eleanor, how she fell off a horse while at Yosemite with Eleanor. Eleanor gave her French pink underwear.
When Missy Hand, Franklin’s secretary/mistress has a stroke, Hick sits by her bed. She tells her all these stories. Author Bloom makes it real, as if these events occurred. It’s fascinating and almost true.
Hick visits Missy at her sister’s in Massachusetts and tells her more stories. She gives her a note from Franklin. Hick worked for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration for two years, saw all kinds of disaster, then reported to Eleanor and to Harry Hopkins. She felt lucky for her life.
When FDR died, Hick was not invited to the funeral. Eleanor missed her, but had too much to do. Hick and Eleanor made love in a Maryland park, on Long Island at Hick’s apartment, and in an old cabin they wanted to buy together. When FDR died they read every note of sympathy together, including ones from Stalin and Churchill’s wife. In 1939, Hick lived in a room in the White House and wrote articles about the New York World’s Fair for a living. Hick and Eleanor were on-again, off-again lovers. Franklin knew it. He had his own. Hick and Franklin bantered back and forth, both intelligent, both knowing the truth about one another.
Find this fascinating novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Hick was a teen-ager when she joined the circus. She describes in detail the “freaks” she met and bunked with: the lobster -clawed girl and the scaly alligator-skinned girl. They all felt the rubes who stared at them were the real freaks. She wrote about President Herbert Hoover and the depression, how he molested the veterans, and how he couldn’t handle the job. Then came FDR with empathy and ideas. Hick tells the stories of her days and nights with Eleanor, how she fell off a horse while at Yosemite with Eleanor. Eleanor gave her French pink underwear.
When Missy Hand, Franklin’s secretary/mistress has a stroke, Hick sits by her bed. She tells her all these stories. Author Bloom makes it real, as if these events occurred. It’s fascinating and almost true.
Hick visits Missy at her sister’s in Massachusetts and tells her more stories. She gives her a note from Franklin. Hick worked for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration for two years, saw all kinds of disaster, then reported to Eleanor and to Harry Hopkins. She felt lucky for her life.
When FDR died, Hick was not invited to the funeral. Eleanor missed her, but had too much to do. Hick and Eleanor made love in a Maryland park, on Long Island at Hick’s apartment, and in an old cabin they wanted to buy together. When FDR died they read every note of sympathy together, including ones from Stalin and Churchill’s wife. In 1939, Hick lived in a room in the White House and wrote articles about the New York World’s Fair for a living. Hick and Eleanor were on-again, off-again lovers. Franklin knew it. He had his own. Hick and Franklin bantered back and forth, both intelligent, both knowing the truth about one another.
Find this fascinating novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.