Franklin & Lucy: Mrs. Rutherford and the Other Remarkable Women in Roosevelt's Life - Joseph E. Persico

I received Franklin and Lucy as a Christmas gift from my boss, who sees it as his duty to educate me in all things Churchill, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.  Having trudged through Doris Kearns Goodwins' No Ordinary Time (no review because, like another book I read at the same time, the very act of reading them was so demoralizing that I couldn't bring myself to think about them aftwarwards), I was apprehensive at the thought of beginning yet another Roosevelt book.  Fortunately, this one was significantly smaller than Kearns' weighty (and ever-so-important) tome, so I decided to tackle it immediately after Christmas.

It was, in fact, a surprisingly easy and engrossing read.  Though Persico's tone and treatment are both remarkably balanced, the subject matter itself is gossip-mag fodder.  Obvs, fans of ER and FDR will no doubt be well familiar with the role that Lucy Mercer Rutherford played in FDR's life; however, as a relative newcomer to the genre ("Roosevelt Lit"), there was much I didn't know about FDR's primary mistress.  This was the woman who shook up ER and FDR's marriage in 1918, and though supposedly banished, continued her friendship and relationship with FDR afterward, through her marriage and his bout with polio, through his terms as President, and who was with him the day of his death in 1945.  Fascinating stuff.

In addition, I was pleased to find that Persico also spent a great deal of time discussing FDR's relationship with ER, as well as with his other "mistresses" - Missy LeHand, whose story is both heartwarming and tragic, Dorothy Schiff, and others.  It's revealing of a different time when a man who held the Presidency for 12 years could have so many close relationships with women and yet not have it become the scandel it would most certainly become today.  It wasn't that these relationships were entirely secret - a great deal of people were "in the know" - but there was much more discretion, it seemed, surrounding the Presidency that allowed FDR this kind of freedom.

Those who are more familiar with Roosevelt Lit might not find much new material - from what I hear, Persico's book is interesting more for its treatment than for any astonishing revelations.  Even so, I found it an excellent entry-point into the fascinating lives of FDR and ER.