Eleanor and Hick: The Love that Shaped a First Lady
Susan Quinn’s subtitle frames her biography about the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok, known to her friends as “Hick.” Both women were raised with a minimum of affection – Eleanor with an adored but usually absent father and a disapproving mother who considered her a disappointment. Hick’s father abused her throughout her childhood, and her stepmother threw her out of the house. The difference between them was Eleanor’s privileged life of wealth and influence and Hick’s hardscrabble early life. Both Eleanor and Hick longed for affection, and they found it given generously in their time together. Apart, they sent each other thousands of loving letters full of vivid detail. Much of Quinn’s story is based on this correspondence. However, large portions of the book connect the events of the relationship story to the social and political history of the FDR era and explain this history in some detail. The writer does not explore the emotional depth of this love affair between two people who had felt supremely unloved. Rather, she presents a carefully researched chronology of the time.
