White Houses, a triumph of historical fiction from award-winning author Amy Bloom, tells the story of the unexpected affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena “Hick” Hickok. When Lorena Hickok meets Eleanor Roosevelt in 1932 while reporting on Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign, she is not instantly charmed by the idealistic, patrician Eleanor. As her connection with the future first lady eventually deepens into intimacy, she moves into the White House, where her status as “first friend” is an open secret, as are FDR’s own lovers. Additionally, “Hick” comes to know Franklin not only as a great president but as a complicated rival and an irresistible friend. From Washington to Hyde Park, White Houses moves elegantly through fascinating places and times, written in compelling prose and with emotional depth, wit, and acuity.
Amy Bloom is a National Book Award finalist, a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee, and the author of numerous New York Times bestselling novels, including Away and Lucky Us. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the Atlantic, among other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award.
"In Lorena Hickok’s unforgettable voice, [Bloom] brings an untold slice of history so dazzlingly and devastatingly to life, it took my breath away. Easily, the most intimate, crackling, and expansive rendering of Eleanor Roosevelt in print, and, more than this, a dizzyingly beautiful tale of what it means to be human, and what it is to love.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife