White Houses

White Houses by Amy Bloom tells the story of Lenora Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt, living and cavorting together between the White House in Washington, DC and a home called Little White House on Long Island, NY.

This is the imagined story of Eleanor Roosevelt and her long time friend and possible lover Lorena Hickok.  Told from the perspective Hickok, we hear about her childhood and how she came from nothing to become a newspaper reporter.  Then how she met Eleanor Roosevelt and became her special friend, living in the White House and traveling with the First Lady.

This is the story of their relationship.  Lenora Hickok grew up with a violent father and her mother, who was too timid to protect Lenora and her two younger sisters from him.  Her mother also dies when Lenora is ten years old.  Her father brings home a new wife and then they decide to leave the state and leave Lenora to work in servitude, taking her younger sisters with them.  She never has a relationship with her family again.  Through a series of different odd experiences she ends up working for a newspaper and becomes a reporter.  When she gets the opportunity to cover the presidential election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  She meets Eleanor and their relationship begins.

It does seem from articles and letters of the time that Teddy had his affairs and Eleanor had her interactions within the marriage and that the couple had an agreement.  They gave each other the room for these outside affairs.

Interesting and also remembering it is a novel wondering how much is true from letters and records and how much is embellished.  Not as shocking, of course, as it may have been then.