A marvelous portrait of a professional woman ahead of her time whose relationship with FDR sheds new light on his...
Franklin Roosevelt’s longtime loyal personal secretary earns a much-needed, balanced portrait.
Although the boss and his devoted factotum were often thrown together intimately over 20 years to tackle his correspondence and brainstorm on speeches and personnel, they were probably not lovers, asserts FDR historian, journalist, and native Georgian Smith (A Necessary War, 2013) in her lively study. A daughter of working-class Boston Catholic parents, Missy LeHand (1898-1944) was an ambitious, high school–educated, trained secretary when, in 1920, FDR’s campaign chairman, Charles McCarthy, brought her into his circle. Even before his first election to New York State governor in 1928, LeHand proved her skill and devotion as FDR’s law secretary and right arm during the years “adrift” after he was stricken by polio. Moreover, while his wife, Eleanor, detested the role of hostess, LeHand was adept and polished, even garnering publicity as the president’s “Super-Secretary” and best dressed among the capital’s women. Through thick and thin, uncomplaining about being on call in his residence for late-night working (whether in Georgia or the White House), LeHand became part of the indispensable White House “secretariat,” including other core members Louis Howe, Steve Early, and Marvin McIntyre. Smith describes LeHand’s job for FDR as chief of staff, when the term was not yet used. Yet with so few women in such high-end jobs, LeHand suffered the inevitable sexism and presumed blurring of duties, as Smith makes very clear. She noted the eclipse of her reputation after her death, thanks to disparaging portraits by the president’s son Elliott in his memoir, An Untold Story (1973), among others. The effects of childhood rheumatic fever and the untold stress of these hardworking years eventually caught up with her in 1941, when she was struck by a massive stroke and removed from the lofty heights of power.
A marvelous portrait of a professional woman ahead of her time whose relationship with FDR sheds new light on his personality and decisions.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1496-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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