White Houses - Amy Bloom

I am not American, and I know little about Franklin D Roosevelt,  a little more about Eleanor his wife.  I didn't buy this book either, it was passed on to me.  But after reading I know more about both of them, because the author has taken facts, and woven them into fictional conversations together with known facts, based on what was happening at the time.

The author tells you it is fiction, but it is the conversations and the intimate happenings that she has made into a fiction -what is true is that all the main characters are real people, (although I have to say I particularly enjoyed Parker Fiske, a man who is a fictional character). Eleanor Roosevelt, the great do-gooder, and Franklin, husband and President are in the White House. And so is Lorena Hickok, journalist, and Eleanor's lover. This is the story of a woman who loved a President's wife, and who outlived both of them. A fascinating trip into history, well researched before writing, Bloom has a really readable style.... every word believable, every fact in the right place. This takes the reader from Hickok's dreadful childhood via Franklyn's terms as President into her old age, and if you feel no emotion when reading her final thoughts on Mrs Roosevelt on the last page, you have no heart. 

How difficult to have been a lesbian at that time when your lover had the eyes of the whole country upon her. In fact, how difficult to have been "different" at all.  Of course, for a man to beat his wife seems even now to be acceptable in some circles, but to take a lover of the same sex at certain times in history has been at the very least, difficult.

Recommended - especially for reading groups.