Undiscovered Country A Novel Inspired By The Lives Of Eleanor Roosevelt And Lorena Hickok

In 1932, New York City, top reporter Lorena “Hick” Hickok starts each day with a front page byline—and finishes it swigging bourbon and planning her next big scoop. But an assignment to cover FDR’s campaign—and write a feature on his wife, Eleanor—turns Hick’s hard-won independent life on its ear. Soon her work, and the secret entanglement with the new first lady, will take her from New York and Washington to Scotts Run, West Virginia, where impoverished coal miners’ families wait in fear that the New Deal’s promised hope will pass them by. Together, Eleanor and Hick imagine how the new town of Arthurdale could change the fate of hundreds of lives. But doing what is right does not come cheap, and Hick will pay in ways she never could have imagined.

The unexpected and forbidden affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok unfolds in a triumph of historical fiction from the New York Times bestselling author of Away and Lucky Us.

Collected for the first time, here are the intimate letters between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickock, a friend she shared an intimate and passionate bond with. B&W photos. 20,000 first print.

Presents a social history of the United States in 1940, along with a moment-by-moment account of Roosevelt's leadership and the private lives of the president and First Lady, whose remarkable partnership transformed America. (This book was previously featured in Forecast.)

Advance Praise "Fascinating and well researched.... Dr. Swift is the first to concentrate on this unusual subject with such a wealth of sympathetic detail." –Sarah Bradford, author of America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain’s Queen, and The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI, 1895—1952 "A splendid addition to our understanding of an extraordinary Anglo-American partnership. Both intimate and expansive, Will Swift’s vigorously researched book is timely, illuminating, and dramatic." –Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1: 1884-1933 and Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Defining Years, 1933-1938 "The Anglo-American alliance has long been a bedrock of the global order, and Will Swift’s The Roosevelts and the Royals details an important chapter in that fascinating story with warmth and verve." –Jon Meacham, author of Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship "Those who remember only that the Roosevelts served hot dogs to the royals will be fascinated by this well-researched account of an historic and ennobling relationship–a great story!" –James MacGregor Burns, author of The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America and Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom "A gripping account of four very different lives that were woven together to change the world in wartime." –Hugo Vickers, author of Cecil Beaton and Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece "Written in fluid and lucid prose, this book is not only eminently readable but also historically illuminating. It explores the contrasting personalities of the four main protagonists with skill and insight and it is both convincing and refreshingly candid." –Brian Roberts, author of Randolph: A Study of Churchill’s Son and Cecil Rhodes and the Princess "This book brings to life my grandmother and her royal friends. Reading it, I found myself reliving the times I shared with them. A wonderful story." –Nina Roosevelt Gibson, Ph.D., psychologist and granddaughter of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt

A warm, intimate account of the love between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok—a relationship that, over more than three decades, transformed both women's lives and empowered them to play significant roles in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history In 1932, as her husband assumed the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the First Lady with dread. By that time, she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life—now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next thirty years, until Eleanor’s death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship: They were, at different points, lovers, confidantes, professional advisors, and caring friends. They couldn't have been more different. Eleanor had been raised in one of the nation’s most powerful political families and was introduced to society as a debutante before marrying her distant cousin, Franklin. Hick, as she was known, had grown up poor in rural South Dakota and worked as a servant girl after she escaped an abusive home, eventually becoming one of the most respected reporters at the AP. Her admiration drew the buttoned-up Eleanor out of her shell, and the two quickly fell in love. For the next thirteen years, Hick had her own room at the White House, next door to the First Lady. These fiercely compassionate women inspired each other to right the wrongs of the turbulent era in which they lived. During the Depression, Hick reported from the nation’s poorest areas for the WPA, and Eleanor used these reports to lobby her husband for New Deal programs. Hick encouraged Eleanor to turn their frequent letters into her popular and long-lasting syndicated column "My Day," and to befriend the female journalists who became her champions. When Eleanor’s tenure as First Lady ended with FDR's death, Hick pushed her to continue to use her popularity for good—advice Eleanor took by leading the UN’s postwar Human Rights Commission. At every turn, the bond these women shared was grounded in their determination to better their troubled world. Deeply researched and told with great warmth, Eleanor and Hick is a vivid portrait of love and a revealing look at how an unlikely romance influenced some of the most consequential years in American history.

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok--Hick--is assigned to cover Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the wife of the 1932 Democratic presidential candidate, the two women become deeply, intimately involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship that ends only with both women's deaths in the 1960s--all of it documented by 3300 letters exchanged over thirty years. Now, New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert recreates the fascinating story of Hick and Eleanor, set during the chaotic years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War. Loving Eleanor is Hick's personal story, revealing Eleanor as a complex, contradictory, and entirely human woman who is pulled in many directions by her obligations to her husband and family and her role as the nation's First Lady, as well as by a compelling need to care and be cared for. For her part, Hick is revealed as an accomplished journalist, who, at the pinnacle of her career, gives it all up for the woman she loves. Then, as Eleanor is transformed into Eleanor Everywhere, First Lady of the World, Hick must create her own independent, productive life. Drawing on extensive research in the letters that were sealed for a decade following Hick's death, Albert creates a compelling narrative: a dramatic love story, vividly portraying two strikingly unconventional women, neither of whom is satisfied to live according to the script society has written for her. Loving Eleanor is a profoundly moving novel that illuminates a relationship we are seldom privileged to see and celebrates the depth and durability of women's love.

The poignant and unforgettable true account of the deep, loving friendship between a handsome physician and the former First Lady, as seen on PBS’s The Roosevelts: An Intimate History “I love you as I love and have never loved anyone else.” —Eleanor Roosevelt in a letter to Dr. David Gurewitsch, 1955 She was the most famous and admired woman in America. He was a strikingly handsome doctor, eighteen years her junior. Eleanor Roosevelt first met David Gurewitsch in 1944. He was making a house call to a patient when the door opened to reveal the wife of the president of the United States, who had come to help her sick friend. A year later, Gurewitsch was Mrs. Roosevelt’s personal physician, on his way to becoming the great lady’s dearest companion—a relationship that would endure until Mrs. Roosevelt’s death in 1962. Recounting the details of this remarkable union is an intimately involved chronicler: Gurewitsch’s wife, Edna. Kindred Souls is a rare love story—the tale of a friendship between two extraordinary people, based on trust, exchange of confidences, and profound interest in and respect for each other’s work. With perceptiveness, compassion, admiration, and deep affection, the author recalls the final decade and a half of the former First Lady’s exceptional life, from her first encounter with the man who would become Mrs. Gurewitsch’s husband through the blossoming of a unique bond and platonic love. Blended into her tender reminiscences are excerpts from the enduring correspondence between Dr. Gurewitsch and the First Lady, and a collection of personal photographs of the Gurewitsch and Roosevelt families. The result is a revealing portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most beloved icons in the last years of her life—a woman whom the author warmly praises as “one of the few people in this world in which greatness and modesty could coexist.”