Eleanor

By: David Michaelis

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best seller from prize-winning author David Michaelis presents a “stunning” (The Wall Street Journal) breakthrough portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving First Lady, an avatar of democracy whose ever-expanding agency as diplomat, activist, and humanitarian made her one of the world’s most widely admired and influential women.

In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Despite their inability to make each other happy, Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York’s Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York’s most important power couple in a generation.

When Eleanor discovered Franklin’s betrayal with her younger, prettier, social secretary, Lucy Mercer, she offered a divorce and vowed to face herself honestly. Here is an Eleanor both more vulnerable and more aggressive, more psychologically aware and sexually adaptable than we knew. She came to accept her FDR’s bond with his executive assistant, Missy LeHand; she allowed her children to live their own lives, as she never could; and she explored her sexual attraction to women, among them a star female reporter on FDR’s first presidential campaign, and younger men.

Eleanor needed emotional connection. She pursued deeper relationships wherever she could find them. Throughout her life and travels, there was always another person or place she wanted to heal. As FDR struggled to recover from polio, Eleanor became a voice for the voiceless, her husband’s proxy in the White House. Later, she would be the architect of international human rights and world citizen of the Atomic Age, urging Americans to cope with the anxiety of global annihilation by cultivating a “world mind.” She insisted that we cannot live for ourselves alone but must learn to live together or we will die together.

This “absolutely spellbinding,” (The Washington Post) “complex and sensitive portrait” (The Guardian) is not just a comprehensive biography of a major American figure, but the story of an American ideal: how our freedom is always a choice. Eleanor rediscovers a model of what is noble and evergreen in the American character, a model we need today more than ever.

©2020 David Michaelis (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

A Thoroughly Engaging Biography

I really enjoyed this bio of Eleanor Roosevelt. Of course, I knew some things about her, especially the trials of her marriage to Franklin, her sad family life due to the death of her mother and her alcoholic father and her need to be raised by her paternal grandmother and the generational problems that caused. I never realized that here was a person who was constantly seeking love, in whatever format it might take--with women, in unrequited forms with men decades younger than her, in thousands of unmet disadvantaged and poor with whom she fought for better lives, yet she clearly was incapable of connecting on a motherly level with her own children whom she left for her hated mother-in-law to lord over, or servants to raise while she pursued the "higher callings." The reading, was, at best, uneven, although, it did get better ( or I got used to it) toward the end; there was a lot of weird inflections which seemed to indicate excitement but not always: just uneven reading which was very annoying and almost stopped my exploration of the book right there, but I managed to solider on through.

How could you not love Eleanor?

Loved the book. The narration was a bit irritating at first; but after hours of listening, you get use to it.

history comes alive. excellent

well written
shows many parallels that we wrestle with today, on the political front
powerful woman
huge heart

Awe Inspiring

Wonderful telling of this ladies life. I feel like I have had a front row seat into this lady’s life.

Wonderful!

What a great book! I learned so much and enjoyed listening to the history especially about WW2.

Greatest First Lady

Eleanor may of had her faults but she grew in to a power to be recon with. Big fan of of the Roosevelts.

Improving America

Nicely narrated and chock-full of interesting anecdotes of a shining star in the history of America. Not all is perfection here, but her flaws make her more of a hero in my book than ever before.

Great Book, horrible post production editing.

Eleanor is one of my all time favorite historical figures, I have read pretty much every book about her and or Franklin. So I was able to get through the book in spite of the horrible editing. The narrator's voice alternates randomly between two tones. At first I thought it was an attempt at emphasis or identifying different characters but it isn't. It is almost as if the narrator got tired of retakes and changed her voice to an annoyed hurried tone and this was edited in. It made the book almost un listenable. Changing the playback speed to 130% partly masked the differences and allowed me to finish the listen. I highly recommend the book but not the Audible audio book. I don't fault the narrator at all. I would listen to any book read by her as long as it was not screwed up in editing.

OMG her name is Eleanor!

the narrator mispronounced her name the entire book. Distracted me from an otherwise good biography

exceptional

A detailed account of Eleanor's life and achievements. it was very well presented by G. Zackman. I enjoyed this book very much.