The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil

All the dirt that's left to print. Eleanor and Hicky (""that is, I never saw them in bed together""). FDR and Lucy, Missy, Martha, et al. (It wasn't true ""that he could no longer perform."") Eleanor and Earl--and other unnamed women, other unnamed men. Eleanor vs. Franklin. Eleanor vs. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, others' on FDR's side. Her ""remoteness"" as a mother. The fights with daughter Anna. Anna's failings as a mother. The many marriages, many indiscretions, many scrapes of the Roosevelt sons. The ""royal headache"" of the British royal visit. . . . The terrible food, the poor pay, the killing hours. . . . A grubby, boring smear-job, in toto, that will of course have its readers--but a little sad considering Lillian Rogers Parks' evident appreciation of Eleanor Roosevelt's regard for blacks and FDR's feeling for her as a fellow-victim of polio.

An intimate biography of Franklin Roosevelt provides a behind-the-scenes look at the daily life of the Roosevelt family in the White House during the Depression.