About the Author

Jan Pottker is the author of seven previous books, including Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Pottker's interest in Sara and Eleanor was sparked when she realized that a myth had grown around Eleanor at the expense of Sara---much the same as the relationship between Jackie and her mother had been underplayed and distorted over time. Pottker has a Ph.D. from Columbia University and lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband, Andrew S. Fishel.

Reviews

"Fills a long-standing void in the Roosevelt story and adds tremendously to our understanding of Roosevelt personal history." --Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves, grandchild of Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Pottker (Janet and Jackie; Dear Ann, Dear Abby) considers another power relationship, that of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Contrary to popular belief, she would have readers believe that Sara was not a gorgon, a racist, an anti-Semite, or a snob; she supported FDR's political career and treated her moody daughter-in-law warmly. At most, Pottker concedes that Sara was something of a meddler. Moreover, Eleanor owed Sara her marriage because Sara apparently warned Franklin that a divorce from Eleanor meant the end of Sara's largesse. Accordingly, Eleanor comes off less well. Emerging from her painful childhood to become a depressed and emotionally unavailable mother, she is shown initially welcoming Sara's extravagant attentions to her and Franklin's children and then carping about them in retrospect. Pottker has extensively researched this book and filled it with convincing and engaging details to make her case for Sara. She takes a defensive tone-not surprising considering that Sara has taken it on the chin from Dore Schary (in Sunrise at Campobello) and Eleanor herself, whose retrospective criticism of her mother-in-law has informed recent scholarship. So perhaps Pottker's sympathetic portrait is overdue. For public libraries.-Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.