Review: Franklin and Lucy by Joseph E. Persico

I've always found Franklin Roosevelt to be the most interesting of our former presidents. He presided over not one, but two national crises (the Depression and World War II), was elected to an unprecedented four terms, was a powerful and inspiring speaker, and he did all of this while concealing the fact that he was crippled as a result of a bout with polio. In Franklin and Lucy, Joseph Parsico looks at FDR's relationships with the women in his life. This, of course, includes his mother, his wife, and his eldest daughter, Anna, but equally important to him it seems was Lucy Rutherford. Persico, through the use of letters and other documents, that theirs was clearly an affair of the heart even if it is unclear if there was every any physical infidelity. It would be easy to judge Roosevelt harshly for the long term relationship he had with Lucy, and certainly the hurt he caused Eleanor was unconscionable, but Persico doesn't offer us any villains in this story, just human beings with the regular compliment of needs and foibles. It just so happens that two of these human beings, Franklin and Eleanor, were major historical figures. That's really the strength of this book, the way it depicts the Roosevelts, for all their power and influence and greatness, as people and not the icons they've become. I'm left wondering, if Eleanor had found happiness in her marriage, would she have been half as accomplished a person as she ultimately was? What of Franklin? Persico does a fair job exploring why FDR needed the other women in his life, that Eleanor, while being an ideal match intellectually, was incapable of providing him with the emotional nourishment that he needed, but for as much genuine affection as he shows to Lucy and others such as Missy LeHand (sometimes called his "surrogate spouse), there's also a selfishness to it all, he doesn't seem to be able to give all that much back. Does he get a pass, as some quoted in the book seem willing to give him, because of the suffering he endured or the great pressure he was under? It's not for me to judge, but it was certainly interesting to read about.