Eleanor

Starred review from August 3, 2020
Biographer Michaelis (Schulz and Peanuts) presents a compulsively readable and exhaustively researched portrait of one of the most admired women of the 20th century. The model of the modern activist First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt lost both parents by the time she was 10 and bounced between relatives’ homes and boarding schools. She learned self-reliance and developed a curiosity about the world, according to Michaelis, but craved love. She thought she found it in her 1905 marriage to Franklin Roosevelt (a distant cousin), but gradually had to accept a political partnership in lieu of the romance of the soul she wanted. Propelled to exercise her intellect and fulfill her desire for public service, Roosevelt worked with the Red Cross, the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Party, and the United Nations. As First Lady, she earned money from “writing, speaking, broadcasting, and endorsing” (though she donated most of it to charities) and campaigned for civil rights. These and other activities brought her into contact with people who provided the love and intimacy Franklin couldn’t, including New York State Trooper Earl Miller, journalist Lorena Hickok, political activist (and future biographer) Joe Lash, and physician David Gurewitsch. Michaelis’s clear-eyed but sympathetic portrayal, enhanced by a crisp writing style, brings Roosevelt’s personality and achievements into sharp focus. This jam-packed biography is a must-read for 20th-century history buffs. Agent: Melanie Jackson.

September 1, 2020

Michaelis (Schulz and Peanuts) presents an accessible, if abbreviated, biography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) in this study that begins by examining the former first lady's traumatic childhood. According to the author, Roosevelt's father's considerable charisma, and alcoholism, had a huge effect on her psyche. Roosevelt's mother, cool and critical, nicknamed her "Granny" at a young age for her serious demeanor. After the deaths of both parents, Eleanor spent most of her adolescence with the Halls, her mother's family. The fateful marriage and partnership with her cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is explored with little nuance; Franklin is portrayed as a poser, overly concerned with his own ambitions and careless of Eleanor's feelings. His affair with Lucy Mercer is given more ink than Eleanor's complicated and significant relationship with Lorena "Hick" Hickok, which trails off in the narrative without closure. Michaelis blazes through Eleanor's many years in the White House and spends little time investigating her evolving political and social conscience, as well as the important figures and activists who influenced her. He dwells overlong on her final illness and decline, when one would have hoped for more of a discussion of her considerable legacy. VERDICT Roosevelt's life does not necessarily lend itself well to concision. Blanche Wiesen Cook's excellent volumes remain the definitive record.--Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID

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Starred review from October 1, 2020
Award-winning biographer Michaelis clarifies and repositions Eleanor Roosevelt's extensively scrutinized, unique, and exceptional life in ways that emphasize just how profoundly relevant her epic struggles and achievements are in this time of political reckoning and quest for genuine social justice. With judicious use of newly accessible sources, sure command of the complexities of the Roosevelt clan, and acute sensitivity to the contrast between Eleanor's public persona and inner self, Michaelis provides a fresh and heart-wrenching perspective on her anguished childhood; her husband's betrayals; her mother-in-law's dominance; her six pregnancies in rapid succession and the death of an infant son; her reluctant but ultimately passionate embrace of the demands of political life; her transformation and elevation of the role of First Lady; her blind spots; and her frequently self-wounding love for women and men. Michaelis meticulously chronicles Eleanor's failings and triumphs within the gripping context of her overt and covert advocacy on behalf of the overlooked and the oppressed during the Great Depression, both world wars, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement. Solid details and astute distillation ensure that readers absorb and appreciate the full impact of Eleanor's suffering, prodigious work, and gender-leaping, world-altering accomplishments as an activist, adviser, world-traveling investigator and envoy of mercy, human-rights commissioner, syndicated columnist and writer, radio and TV host, and global conscience.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2020
A comprehensive exploration of one of the most influential women of the last century. The accomplishments of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) were widespread and substantial, and her trailblazing actions in support of social justice and global peace resonate powerfully in our current moment. Her remarkable life has been extensively documented in a host of acclaimed biographies, including Blanche Wiesen Cook's excellent three-volume life. Eleanor was also a highly prolific writer in her own right; through memoirs, essays, and letters, she continuously documented experiences and advancing ideas. In the most expansive one-volume portrait to date, Michaelis offers a fresh perspective on some well-worn territory--e.g., Eleanor's unconventional marriage to Franklin and her progressively charged relationships with men and women, including her intimacy with newspaper reporter Lorena Hickok. The author paints a compelling portrait of Eleanor's life as an evolving journey of transformation, lingering on the significant episodes to shed nuance on her circumstances and the players involved. Eleanor's privileged yet dysfunctional childhood was marked by the erratic behavior and early deaths of her flighty, alcoholic father and socially absorbed mother, and she was left to shuttle among equally neglectful relatives. During her young adulthood, her instinctual need to be useful and do good work attracted the attention of notable mentors, each serving to boost her confidence and fine-tune her political and social convictions, shaping her expanding consciousness. As in his acclaimed biography of Charles Schulz, Michaelis displays his nimble storytelling skills, smoothly tracking Eleanor's ascension from wife and mother to her powerfully influential and controversial role as first lady and continued leadership and activist efforts beyond. Throughout, the author lucidly illuminates the essence of her thinking and objectives. "As Eleanor's activism evolved," writes Michaelis, "she did not see herself reaching to solve social problems so much as engaging with individuals to unravel discontinuities between the old order and modernity." A well-documented and enlightened portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt for our times.

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