White Houses: the story of two women's deep friendship

White Houses by Amy Bloom is a fictionalized look into the friendship, and possible love affair, between Lorena Alice “Hick” Hickcock and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The story opens in April 1945, soon after President Roosevelt has passed away and Hick is waiting for the arrival of Eleanor, whom she hasn’t seen in years. The story then takes us back to when the two women first met. Hick was a reporter and Eleanor was on the getting ready to set on the road for the White House as Franklin makes his bid for the presidency. Told in a series of memories from her childhood through the Great Depression and her life with the Roosevelts, the book takes a deeper look into these historical icons.

White Houses takes the reader into the characters and shows them as more than the media and history has recorded them. Real people with real issues, concerns and struggles as the United States headed to the depths of the Great Depression and war. I usually love historical fiction and don’t usually mind when a book features real people, but I found this book dragged a bit. If the two women were indeed lovers, the author didn’t display much emotion between them. It felt flat and so matter of fact. I still enjoyed the story and recommend White Houses to readers who like fictionalized stories of historical figures.

White Houses

is available in hardcover and ebook