![]() ![]() ![]() Louis Howe, who developed Eleanor's political and organizational capabilities, brought the couple together on new terms but two households were gradually established with two camps of intimates and a good deal of jealousy on Eleanor's part, as when Hopkins deserted her patronage for FDR's. The sunrise-at-Campobello efforts are played down, but Eleanor's conflicts with her mother-in-law are prominent throughout. Along with World War I, FDR's intrigue with Lucy Mercer is held responsible for Eleanor's emergence as a public woman: Lash underlines the fact that she did give Franklin the option of divorce. ![]() The FDR courtship is convincingly presented as an earnest, rather tender affair. Family branches are anecdotally traced, and Eleanor's youth fully described, with well-dimensioned portraits of her scornful mother, dissolute father, chilly grandmother, and flighty aunts, as well as her emergence into self-confidence at boarding school. The pre-White House years, however, are especially absorbing reading. Essentially a sympathetic biography of Eleanor Roosevelt by an old friend, this gigantic book traces her relationship with FDR. ![]()
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