White Houses

December 1, 2017
From the prolific Bloom, whose novels and short stories have often explored the complexity of sexuality and gender (Lucky Us, 2014, etc.), a bio-fiction about the romance between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena Hickok told from Hickok's perspective.Lorena's winning narrative voice is tough, gossipy, and deeply humane. Her storytelling begins and continually circles back to shortly after FDR's death. On the last weekend in April 1945, a grieving Eleanor has summoned Lorena to her Manhattan apartment years after having sent her away. Now in late middle-age, the two fall into their ingrained routine as lovers--and has anyone written about middle-aged women's bodies and sexuality with Bloom's affectionate grace? Lorena's enduring love for Eleanor does not blind her to the reality of the two women's differences: "Her propriety, my brass knuckles." Bloom mostly depicts already familiar details of Eleanor's history, character, and personality. More riveting are Lorena's memories of her early life before Eleanor, from a dirt-poor childhood to a brief circus career described in arrestingly colorful detail to work as a journalist forbidden to publish her suspicion that Lindbergh staged a coverup concerning his baby's kidnapping. Lorena and Eleanor fell in love shortly before FDR won the presidency. Given his own complicated love life, FDR accepted the affair and got Lorena a job with his administration. Lorena, far from saintly, continues to love Eleanor almost despite recognizing that Eleanor cannot help living a "sainted life." The complexity of their mutual attraction is one of the joys of the book, particularly when Lorena recalls an Eleanor tender and even girlish during a private driving vacation to Maine they took without a Secret Service escort. Having lived as an intimate outsider within the FDR White House, Lorena also offers her admittedly biased take on the confidential crises, tragedies, and peccadilloes of the Roosevelt household.Bloom elevates this addition to the secret-lives-of-the-Roosevelts genre through elegant prose and by making Lorena Hickok a character engrossing enough to steal center stage from Eleanor Roosevelt.

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January 29, 2018
Bloom, finalist for the National Book Award (for Come to Me), brings to life Eleanor Roosevelt through the eyes of her lover, Lorena “Hick” Hickok, in this fiery historical novel. After eight years apart, Hick visits Eleanor following the death of F.D.R. just months before the end of WWII. Seeing her old friend and lover inspires Hick to reflect on trips the car trip they took to Maine during their initial courtship while Franklin Roosevelt was still governor of New York. It was on this trip that Hick first divulged her life story to Eleanor: growing up in an abusive home in rural South Dakota, leaving as a teenager to work as a housemaid, being hired as a receptionist for a traveling circus, and starting a career in journalism in Chicago. Hick eventually worked the politics beat at the Associated Press before leaving due to her close relationship to the Roosevelts. Bloom beautifully captures the affection the women felt for each other by revealing hushed schemes and stolen moments of passion against the backdrop of world-changing events that end up driving Eleanor and Hick apart. Cleverly structured through reminiscences that slowly build in intimacy, Bloom’s passionate novel beautifully renders the hidden love of one of America’s most guarded first ladies.

Starred review from January 1, 2018
While researching her previous novel, Lucky Us (2014), Bloom found her next subject: the long-camouflaged if richly rumored relationship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and trailblazing journalist Lorena Hickok. Hick narrates this empathic story of true and besieged loveand what a discerning, courageous, and mordantly witty observer she is. She frankly recounts her brutal childhood in South Dakota, her striking out on her own as a young teen (including a stint with a circus), and her discovery of her reportorial talents and feelings for women. When Hick begins covering the White House, she and Eleanor fall promptly in love. As their hidden-in-plain-sight affair gains intensity, and Hick moves into the White House, she gives up her hard-won journalistic career. Via Hick's crisp delivery and fluency in telling detail, Bloom uncloaks the insidious treacheries girls and women face, poor and privileged alike. Through Hick's loving eyes, we witness Eleanor's complex struggles, unwavering discipline, and fierce passion, while Hick's take on FDR and the rest of the Roosevelts is deftly lacerating. Hick's outrage over the trauma inflicted on gays and lesbians, the class divide, the beauty quotient, and the gender double standard fuels this socially incisive, psychologically saturated, funny, and erotic fictionalization of legendary figures; this novel of extraordinary magnetism and insight; this keen celebration of love, loyalty, and sacrifice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from January 1, 2018

Lorena "Hick" Hickok was a hard-boiled newspaper reporter, but she showed her tender side to the love of her life, Eleanor Roosevelt. In this new novel by the acclaimed author of Lucky Us, Hick tells her story in her own brash voice. Hick and Eleanor could not have been more different. Eleanor was genteel, patrician, and private, the opposite of Lorena. Both women had unhappy childhoods, but Hick's was brutal. She escaped grinding poverty and an abusive father in South Dakota, working as a hired girl before joining a circus. By the time Eleanor meets her in 1932, Hick is a respected AP reporter. Hick moves into the White House, taking a job in the Roosevelt administration, though Eleanor's portly companion was usually cut out of any official photos. Told from Hick's perspective, the novel embraces not just the White House but Hick's little white house on Long Island, hence the title. VERDICT Imagining intimate scenes between these two women and portraying Franklin D. Roosevelt in all his complexity, with his own dalliances and foibles, Bloom brings the Roosevelts and their world vividly to the page, giving an unforgettable voice to the larger-than-life Lorena. An original, richly textured, and beautifully written love story. [See Prepub Alert, 9/11/17.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2018

Lorena "Hick" Hickok was a hard-boiled newspaper reporter, but she showed her tender side to the love of her life, Eleanor Roosevelt. In this new novel by the acclaimed author of Lucky Us, Hick tells her story in her own brash voice. Hick and Eleanor could not have been more different. Eleanor was genteel, patrician, and private, the opposite of Lorena. Both women had unhappy childhoods, but Hick's was brutal. She escaped grinding poverty and an abusive father in South Dakota, working as a hired girl before joining a circus. By the time Eleanor meets her in 1932, Hick is a respected AP reporter. Hick moves into the White House, taking a job in the Roosevelt administration, though Eleanor's portly companion was usually cut out of any official photos. Told from Hick's perspective, the novel embraces not just the White House but Hick's little white house on Long Island, hence the title. VERDICT Imagining intimate scenes between these two women and portraying Franklin D. Roosevelt in all his complexity, with his own dalliances and foibles, Bloom brings the Roosevelts and their world vividly to the page, giving an unforgettable voice to the larger-than-life Lorena. An original, richly textured, and beautifully written love story. [See Prepub Alert, 9/11/17.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2017

New York Times best seller Bloom (Lucky Us), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, draws inspiration from real-life figures as she reimagines the deep friendship between AP reporter Lorena Hickok and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The novel is told from Hickok's perspective, opening with her childhood and eventually intertwining her life and the First Lady's as we are taken behind the scenes at the White House, where Hickok lived. (She also had a little white house on Long Island, hence the title.) With a three- to five-city tour.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.