The book: Eleanor by David Michaelis is a single-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Why I read it: I’ve always thought Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the more interesting First Ladies. While I still think that as an adult, as a child a big part of that was from seeing “Annie” so many times. Having grandparents that lived through the Great Depression was part of it, too. When this book was released it seemed to get a certain amount of fanfare–enough, anyway, for me to notice and add it to my TBR list. Over the past year or two I’ve made a conscious effort to read something soothing every night before bed, and eventually this one made its way to the top of that pile.
What I thought of it: First–Eleanor Roosevelt really was a fascinating woman. This book makes it clear that there’s a lot to admire here. (Note: I just logged back into CBR after a 2 month hiatus and found I was in the middle of this review. Let’s see if I can remember this book well enough to finish it.) Eleanor had an unhappy childhood and lost both of her parents, as well as one brother, at an early age. Raised by her aunts and grandmother, she grew up feeling lonely, out of place, unloved and unlovable. She’s easy to empathize with, especially in her youth. In fact, Eleanor certainly comes out looking much better than Franklin for many reasons. Although still bigoted and antisemitic, she was the more progressive of the two. She championed an anti-lynching law in the 30s, and spoke out against WWII-era prejudice against Japanese-Americans (she also privately opposed the Japanese internment camps that FDR created). Their marriage was really something–after Eleanor learned of FDR’s involvement with her secretary, Lucy Mercer, their marriage effectively ended and their political partnership began. Eleanor and Franklin had several children, and this is where the book is hardest on her–it’s clear she was a neglectful and distracted mother, and her relationship with her eldest daughter, Anna, was strained.
So while Eleanor Roosevelt the person is well worth reading about, this book is maybe not the best introduction to her, if you don’t already know a lot of her story. For one thing, the prose is flowery beyond belief. There are multiple sentences that I reread and failed to ever make sense of. For example, this sentence about State Trooper Earl Miller, who served as her bodyguard: “He fattened on the privilege of being Eleanor’s current one and only, and had no intention of sacrificing those privileges for ordinary coupledom with one of his girlfriends, even if the down payment on a bungalow was all taken care of by ‘the Lady.'” What? I read and reread the section on Miller and have no idea if Michaelis is suggesting they were an actual item or not. The opaqueness of the writing was often frustrating, and I came away from the book feeling that while I had a good sense of who Eleanor was as a person, I didn’t really understand most of her relationships or know much more about the events of her life.