UPHILL: A Personal Story

by Eleanor & Mary Finch Hoyt McGovern ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 1974

With the same quality we came to appreciate on the campaign trail, the author, wife of the Democratic Senator from South Dakota, takes the risk of exposing her deeply-felt convictions rather than merely expressing acceptable liberal pieties in this simply written, winning memoir. Although some will be disturbed by her portrait of her husband -- she quit college to marry him and ever since has been a vociferous reader to catch up -- which is partial, as is her support of his politics, Eleanor McGovern nevertheless comes across as very much an independent person -- questioning, open, refreshingly flexible. What's most convincing is her faith, her connection with the land where she grew up -- orphaned, along with a twin and a younger sister, at the age of eleven -- and her belief in the sustaining strength of ""family."" She writes about how the rough and tumble and dirty tricks on the hustings exploited her own, especially when the brutalizing spotlight focused on her emotionally disturbed youngest daughter after the pot bust. Unlike so many political wives, Eleanor McGovern has and speaks a mind of her own, full of thoughts no speech writer ever planted. And one comes away -- it must be said -- feeling what an attractive First Lady she would have made.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION