Eleanor in the Village: Eleanor Roosevelt's Search for Freedom and Identity in New York's Greenwich Village by Jan Jarboe Ruseell

 

Eleanor in the Village contends that Eleanor Roosevelt's association with New York's Greenwich Village and the friends she made there had a major impact on the formation of her personal identity outside of her marriage to Franklin. I had hoped to learn details about her activities in the Village.

Jan Jarboe Russell gives readers a brief biography of Eleanor's entire life, which for a reader like myself who has read numerous books on Eleanor and Franklin was a recap of known history. She does give space to the many friendships Eleanor made with Village friends, particularly lesbian friends who were very special to her. She shared her private getaway Val Kill with one lesbian couple, and taught in a school opened one of the partners. A female journalist became her close friend and lived in the White House for a time.

Russell mentions the activities that spurred Hoover to open a secret FBI file on her: support of unions and workers and civil rights activities considered communist or socialist in those days. Pages of those files are still unlocked.

I wanted to know more about her activities in the village. I was disappointed by the lack of depth. Russell mentions that Eleanor knew writers living in the Village, like Thomas Wolfe. I sure wanted to know more about this!

An interesting point is Russell's interpretation of Eleanor's relationships with both lesbian friends, like Lorena Hick, and men she loved, including her body guard, doctor, and Joe Lash. As she does also with Franklin's relationship with Missy LeHand, his 'office wife'. Most biographers admit there is no concrete evidence that any of these relationships were sexual in nature or romantic on the Roosevelts' side. Russell is surer.

What is clear is that after Eleanor discovered her husband's affair with her personal secretary, she formed her own 'families' to love, becoming closer to these people than her own children. 

Eleanor's story of personal growth is inspiring. That the 'ugly' child from a dysfunctional family, whose mother-in-law ruled her home and life, and whose husband betrayed her, turned out to be a respected, world renowned humanitarian leader could be a fairy tale. But there was no magic involved. With dear friends and strength of will, Eleanor transformed her life.

I would recommend this biography to those who are not familiar with Eleanor Roosevelt. In fact, it would be a good first biography for young adults.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Eleanor in the Village: Eleanor Roosevelt's Search for Freedom and Identity in New York's Greenwich Village
by Jan Jarboe Russell
Scribner
Pub Date March 30, 2021 
ISBN: 9781501198151
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

A vivid and incisive account of a mostly unknown yet critical chapter in the life of Eleanor Roosevelt—when she moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, shed her high-born conformity, and became the progressive leader who pushed for change as America’s First Lady.

Hundreds of books have been written about FDR and Eleanor, both together and separately, but yet she remains a compelling and elusive figure. And, not much is known about why in 1920, Eleanor suddenly abandoned her duties as a mother of five and moved to Greenwich Village, then the symbol of all forms of transgressive freedom—communism, homosexuality, interracial relationships, and subversive political activity. Now, in this fascinating, in-depth portrait, Jan Russell pulls back the curtain on Eleanor’s life to reveal the motivations and desires that drew her to the Village and how her time there changed her political outlook.

A captivating blend of personal history detailing Eleanor’s struggle with issues of marriage, motherhood, financial independence, and femininity, and a vibrant portrait of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world, this unique work examines the ways that the sensibility, mood, and various inhabitants of the neighborhood influenced the First Lady’s perception of herself and shaped her political views over four decades, up to her death in 1962.

When Eleanor moved there, the Village was a neighborhood of rogues and outcasts, a zone of Bohemians, misfits, and artists. But there was also freedom there, a miniature society where personal idiosyncrasy could flourish. Eleanor joined the cohort of what then was called “The New Women” in Greenwich Village. Unlike the flappers in the 1920s, the New Women had a much more serious agenda, organizing for social change—unions for workers, equal pay, protection for child workers—and they insisted on their own sexual freedom. These women often disagreed about politics—some, like Eleanor, were Democrats, others Republicans, Socialists, and Communists. Even after moving into the White House, Eleanor retained connections to the Village, ultimately purchasing an apartment in Washington Square where she lived during World War II and in the aftermath of Roosevelt’s death in 1945.

Including the major historical moments that served as a backdrop for Eleanor’s time in the Village, this remarkable work offers new insights into Eleanor’s transformation—emotionally, politically, and sexually—and provides us with the missing chapter in an extraordinary life.

A Mystery Quilt Block

One of the Clawson Quilting Sisters brought fifty quilt blocks that had belonged to her mother and which she has had for decades. She was hoping I could tell her something about them.

The blocks were machine pieced except for the y-seams which were hand pieced. The pink prints and white fabric are in good condition, silky, a good quality, and not at all brittle.

Because the fabrics were a fine quality, I did not believe they dated to the Depression Era, but perhaps late 20th c.

First, I checked out Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Blocks. There were blocks similar, but they had outer pieces and the star was positioned differently. My friend's blocks has the points of the star meeting the pieced while bar center.

I shared the photos to the Facebook group Quilts Antique and Vintage. And I searched online.

I found a block called the Road to Florida, or Florida.

The diagram below shows the pieced bars that look like my friend's blocks. But...the star points are differently placed.

Here is the block, called Florida. 

I was asked if the star were hand appliqued and positioned differently, but it is not.

One FB quilter suggested the block was Stars and Bars, and I found this example online. Still not exactly like my friend's quilt blocks.

Again, similar, with more quilt pieces and still with the star positioned differently.

I will keep looking.

Mini-Reviews: Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie/ I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith/Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

I listened to the audiobook of Home Fire by Kamia Shamsie which I purchased through Chirp. I congratulate the narrator for her clarity and her ability to voice the characters so clearly and elegantly.

The story begins when a British Muslim woman, Isma, is studying in America and runs into a man she knew about from home, the son of a man prominent in British politician who has dissociated himself from his Muslim heritage; he was also responsible for the death of her father who had become a jihadist. With the death of her mother, Isma raised her younger twin siblings Aneeka and Parvaiz. Now they are grown, she is finishing her studies.

Isma comes to like Eamonn, although his wealth and privilege has protected him. He is recalled to Britain where he meets the beautiful Aneeka, who makes use of his attraction to insinuate herself into his life. For she has need of power to bring her twin brother home after he was groomed and lured into the jihadist world.

A modern retelling of Antigone, the story is a wonderful exploration of family bonds versus the political and societal prejudices that force immigrants to choose between their cultural and religious heritage and assimilating into Western society.

Home Fire

by Kamila Shamsie

read by Tania Rodrigues

Penguin Random House

Release Date: August 15, 2017
Unabridged Audiobook $15.00

PUBLISHER DESCRIPTION

Longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences

Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma’s worst fears are confirmed.

Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families’ fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?

*****

I have seen I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith mentioned as a favorite by many across social media. I picked up the 1948 edition at a library sale, and after seeing the movie based on it, decided I needed to read this book this winter as an anodyne to the anxiety of the pandemic.

The novel consists of journal entries by a young woman on the verge of womanhood who observes her family and her surroundings with great insight, with love, but also objectivity. She is able to dissect and identify the foibles of her family. Her self-awareness is quite remarkable as she struggles with her desires, her relationships, and even her faith (or lack of faith).

I think the intimacy of the novel allows so many readers to identify with the heroine. 

This is not a novel of big ideas or high adventure, twists, or thrills. It is human in scale.  Smith writes with an awareness of human frailty; her scenes of great amusement and humor do not diminish her characters. These are characters we care about. They are original, vivid, and conflicted. 

I can see why so many have enjoyed this novel. It certainly was a balm.

*****

The opposite of a comforting read is Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O'Farrell. The story of William Shakespeare's wife and family makes for the best kind of historical fiction, a literary gem that transports readers into another world that is  alien and yet very familiar, thanks to the depth of the characters.

O'Farrell imagines William meeting and falling in love with Agnes, a strange woman who practices herbal remedies and wanders alone through the fields and woods with her pet falcon. 

William's unhappiness with rural life inspires Agnes to suggest he expand his father's business in London, where he becomes involved with he theater. He supports his family and visits several times a year, while Agnes raises their children. 

O'Farrell follows the path of the plague across the world until it reaches Agnes's twin children. Hamnet's protectiveness of his twin leads to dire consequences. 

This story of grief is one more 2020 book whose timing was serendipitous. At a time when millions mourn, O'Farrell has given us a luminous story of grief.

Hamnet is a Top Ten Best Books of 2020 by the New York Times, and winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction.

I purchased a copy of the book.

Master of His Fate: Roosevelt's Rise from Polio to the Presidency by James Tobin

I know the story well.

First, because I had read James Tobin's biography The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency. And from reading numerous other books about Franklin Roosevelt.

And yet, I felt the tension and expectation stirring as I read Tobin's middle school biography of how Franklin Roosevelt met the challenge of infantile polio with extraordinary perseverance. 

As Al Smith pressured FDR to run for governor of New York State in a desperate bid to maintain Democratic votes for his presidency, Missy LeHand, FDR's secretary and 'office wife' whispers "Don't you dare!" for she knew what was at stake. 

With more time in therapy at Warm Springs, FDR might walk again. If he returned to his home state and full time work, his chances to walk without crutches or braces was nil. 

FDR had to choose between his personal goal to beat polio and his political hopes. The moment was now--was it worth the cost?

Tobin's ability to describe the medical information about polio and how it affected FDR's body is excellent. Young readers will understand the science and the emotional and social impact of the disease. FDR being 'crippled' meant he had to defy compartmentalization by society, politicians, and especially by voters. 

There was no hiding his disability. He had to wear heavy leg braces, use crutches, canes, and wheelchairs, and had to be lifted into cars. 

He turned the indignity into a demonstration of his strength and positive energy. He lifted his head, smiled, kept an upbeat attitude, communicating that being 'lame' did not affect his mind and his ability to work hard. In fact, he inspired people.

"Through those twelve dark years of pain and upheaval, Roosevelt's leadership was the beacon in the darkness. Because he evidently believed that all would be well in the end, people took hope. And it was no small thing that they knew he had come through a great personal ordeal."~Master of his Fate by James Tobin

Tobin informs about FDR's failings, including his troubled marriage, his distance as a father, times he became angry. He was not perfect. But that is the wonderful thing--imperfect humans can impact and change the world for the better.

The book is also a political history, tracing FDR's career and how his political relationship with Al Smith, and his nomination speech, brought him to public attention. 

Franklin Roosevelt is consistently rated as one of our greatest presidents for leading the country through perilous times and for social programs that we take for granted today. 

Young readers will understand how polio changed FDR's life and made him a better person, and that we can rise above the cards we have been dealt. 

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Master of His Fate: Roosevelt's Rise from Polio to the Presidency
by James Tobin
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Pub Date: March 23, 2021   
ISBN : 9781627795203
hardcover $19.99 (USD)

from the publisher

Master of His Fate by James Tobin is an inspiring middle-grade biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with a focus on his battle with polio and how his disease set him on the course to become president.

In 1921, FDR contracted polio. Just as he began to set his sights on the New York governorship—and, with great hope, the presidency—FDR became paralyzed from the waist down. FDR faced a radical choice: give up politics or reenter the arena with a disability, something never seen before. With the help of Eleanor and close friends, Roosevelt made valiant strides toward rehabilitation and became even more focused on becoming president, proving that misfortune sometimes turns out to be a portal to unexpected opportunities and rewards—even to greatness.

This groundbreaking political biography richly weaves together medicine, disability narratives, and presidential history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Tobin is an award-winning biographer and the author of the adult book The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency, as well as the children's books The Very Inappropriate Word and Sue MacDonald Had a Book. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography for Ernie Pyle’s War and the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. He teaches narrative nonfiction in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Related books about FDR and his life that I have reviewed

The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Partnership that Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/fdrs-office-wife-and-many-loves-of.html

Frank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance That Created the Modern Democratic Party
by Terry Golway
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/09/frank-al-fdr-al-smith-and-unlikely.html

Eternal by Lisa Scottoline

Lisa Scottoline first drew my attention with her legal thrillers set in Philadelphia; they became a nostalgic read recollecting our fifteen years in that city. Scottoline expanded into stories inspired by social issues, and now with a new publisher, has written her first historical fiction novel about a time and place that has intrigued her for decades: Italy under the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini. 

She has incorporated events that few remember, and for that, I have to commend her. She obviously did her research and her passion shows.

Three best friends in Rome are challenged when the two boys, Marco and the Jewish Sandro, fall in love with the girl, Elisabetta. The early part of the novel reads like a young adult romance, teenagers learning to deal with their new feelings and the problems entailed. All three families are ardent supporters of the Fascist government, and all three families have deep roots in Rome. But there are family secrets to be revealed.

The plot becomes more intense when Mussolini aligns with Hitler and brings anti-Semite laws to Italy; the families begin to doubt the government. Marco's family is torn apart, Sandro's faces the loss of everything they have built, and Elisabetta finds herself alone and fending for herself, torn between her two best friends vying for her love.

It is interesting to see how each individual must decide between loyalty to country and leader and their moral conscience and religious beliefs. Mussolini proclaimed that he was always right, and extolled duty and loyalty to him.

My Goodreads friends have rated the novel highly, drawn in by the plot line and the love story. You will see glowing reviews across media. The finale is heart-rending.

I love Scottoline. She is a great person and has given me hours of entertainment. But...I am sorry to say, I do not love this book. I did not love the writing. I felt the characters were flat and their growth without meaningful development. The dialogue was sadly cliched. 

Because the violence  and sexual content is handled delicately, I could recommend the book to young adult readers as well as to the general reader of historical or women's fiction. And again, I commend the author for bringing to readers a time period that can give insight into our contemporary political issues. 

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Click on the titles to see the previous books I reviewed by Scottoline:

• Corrupted
• Damaged
• After Anna
• Feared
• Exposed

Eternal
by Lisa Scottoline
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Pub Date March 23, 2021 
ISBN: 9780525539766
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from then publisher

#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline offers a sweeping and shattering epic of historical fiction fueled by shocking true events, the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome...in the creeping shadow of fascism.

What war destroys, only love can heal.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear--their families, their homes, and their connection to one another--is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city's Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war--all set in one of the world's most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of readers.

Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmaar

"I don't know how to explain to her that I am cornered by memories, caged in my recollection. I feel persecuted by the things I remember and by what my mind chooses to hide from me.~from Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar

Everyone wants a story. A narrative with meaning. The doctors. The officials. The contact at a magazine who publishes her writing. 

She is recognized as 'other', Arab, Muslim. She is a refugee in England. People fear her. Or, they want to know things she holds close, the people lost and the atrocities of war and her escape across Europe. The experiences that left her enveloped by silence.

Trauma took her voice. Communicating only in the written word, she becomes "The Voiceless." 

The only reasonable response was to fill myself up with silence.~from Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar

She looks out the windows of her apartment and observes the occupants of the other apartments. She knows their secrets. But she keeps apart until a horrendous crime evokes a response that frees her.

Layla AlAmmar's novel Silence is a Sense brilliantly delves into the soul of a woman who has lost everything, first by the war that destroyed her world, and then by her harrowing flight across borders, only to find there is no safe harbor even in freedom. 

Edgar Allan Poe's fable Silence informs the work, the narrator committing it to memory. "My heart pounds to the rhythm of his cadence," she thinks as she recites it in her head.

Front-piece in Vol. Seven of the 1904 Commemorative Edition of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

I picked up my grandfather's set of Poe to read the fable and noted images that appear in AlAmmar's novel. Poe describes a place where giant water lilies shriek in a yellow river, and forests quake in windless skies, and a crimson moon lights the view. A being in desolation is subjected to beating rain and roaring hippopotami, then by a profound silence by the Demon who tells the tale. The man hurriedly flees in terror.

The fable speaks to the narrator who has also been terrorized and left in silence.

For AlAmmar's protagonist, silence is the only sane reaction to atrocity. We don't need detailed descriptions of what she endured, for her reaction tells us all we need to know. 

What do we see when we look at refugees, immigrants, people who look different from us, or who worship differently from us? Do we think of their legacy of losses? 

Our immigrant ancestors kept their stories quiet, they did not tell us of the death camps or the burned villages, the rape and torture when they were powerless. We wrap these things in silence.

We demand stories and hope to hear pretty tales, happy endings. 

At the end of the novel, our heroine speaks her name, has found her voice. There is hope of healing. 

I received a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Silence Is a Sense

by Layla AlAmmar
Algonquin Books
Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 9781643750262
hard cover $25.95 (USD)

from the publisher

“Lyrical, moving, and revealing."~Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring

A transfixing and beautifully rendered novel about a refugee’s escape from civil war—and the healing power of community.

A young woman sits in her apartment, watching the small daily dramas of her neighbors across the way. She is an outsider, a mute voyeur, safe behind her windows, and she sees it all—the sex, the fights, the happy and unhappy families. Journeying from her war-torn Syrian homeland to this unnamed British city has traumatized her into silence, and her only connection to the world is the column she writes for a magazine under the pseudonym “the Voiceless,” where she tries to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it—or revealing anything about herself.

Gradually, though, the boundaries of her world expand. She ventures to the corner store, to a bookstore and a laundromat, and to a gathering at a nearby mosque. And it isn’t long before she finds herself involved in her neighbors’ lives. When an anti-Muslim hate crime rattles the neighborhood, she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in a community that, despite her best efforts, is quickly becoming her own?

Layla AlAmmar, a Kuwaiti-American writer and brilliant student of Arab literature, delivers here a complex and fluid book about memory, revolution, loss, and safety. Most of all, Silence is a Sense reminds us just how fundamental human connection is to survival.

About the Author

Growing up in Kuwait, I often – some might say too often – found solace in the pages of a book; and if it was a really good book, it would soon become more of a best friend—lovingly read over and over again.

I also began writing at a very early age, from poems to articles to bits and pieces of stories, and I always had this vague, ethereal idea of being published one day.

I completed an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh in 2014 and soon after completed my first full-length novel. I began a PhD on the intersection of Arab women’s fiction and literary trauma theory in 2019.

I’ve had short stories published by the Evening Standard, Quail Bell Magazine, Aesthetica Magazine, the St Andrews University Prose Journal, and in the collection Underground: Tales for London (Borough Press 2018). My  story "The Lagoon" was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award 2014. I was British Council International Writer in Residence at the Small Wonder Short Story Festival in 2018.

My debut novel, THE PACT WE MADE, which deals with the lives of young women in Kuwait, was published by Borough Press in March 2019. My second novel, SILENCE IS A SENSE, was published in Spring 2021 (Borough/Algonquin).

Covid-19 Life: Books On the Shelf and Other News

It seems that as soon as I finish a book, another...or two...come in!

Surprise book mail from Sourcebooks is The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood. I entered a giveaway and won it! When engineer Washington Roebling became too ill to work on the Brooklyn Bridge, his wife Emily took over his work.

New on my NetGalley shelf is quit a mix!

• Miss Kopp Investigates by Amy Stewart, the seventh Miss Kopp book
• Letters to a Young Poet: A New translation and Commentary, Rainer Maria Rilke's classic
• Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh
• Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy whose Migrations I read last year
• After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made by Ben Rhodes
• That Summer by Jennifer Weiner whose Big Summer I read last year
• Eternal,  Lisa Scottoline's first historical fiction novel

I also signed up for a blog tour of A Theater for Dreamers by Polly Sansom; I was a little late and am waiting to hear back from Algonquin about it. It is a novel based on Leonard Cohen's time in Greece.

This week the library book club discussed Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney, who kindly stopped in via Zoom to talk to us. She is a lovely person. My second reading of this book left me more in love with Lillian than ever. One book club member said she didn't want to leave Lillian, and listened to the audiobook again!

I found some lovely tea cups to embroider through the DMC website. Here are two of the six, minus the gold thread embroidery still to come.

Next week we get our second Covid-19 vaccinations! Our later April calendar is filled with missed dentist, eye doctor, and other appointments we put off for a year.

But this last weekend, we got to puppysit our dear Ellie for a day! She is so sweet and gentle. Also, more sociable and less skittish than she was when our son brought her home from the rescue society.

Here is Ellie with Gus at our son's home. Gus loves to rough house with Sunny who is just as rough and playful.

My brother posted this post-winter pic from his cabin pond, which he called 'carnage at the frog pond.' Perhaps this spring we can visit the cabin again. Once the carnage has been cleared up!

Stay safe. Find your bliss.