My Amazon and Goodreads review of White Houses (Rating 5): A Smooth Puree of Fact and Fiction. Fact #1 is that Eleanor Roosevelt is the famous person, dead or alive, with whom I most want to have dinner. (Although if she were setting the menu, I would follow the advice given to visitors when she was First Lady and eat beforehand.) Fact #2 is that Amy Bloom has concocted a gourmet meal in White Houses, a smooth purée blending truth and imagination that is both tender and raw, and intriguing and intrigue-filled. Eleanor’s portrayal matches the idealized figure of my dream dinner companion. The humanitarian champion comes across as authentic, compassionate, wise, and a lot looser than her elegant posture suggests. But Lorena Hickok is the star of the book. The talented journalist and First Lady’s purported lover is sharp-tongued, self-aware, and devoted, a scrappy woman who knows what it means to scrape bottom. As a writer of historical fiction myself, I urge readers on social media to “learn history through fiction.” I am also delighted if, when I finish creating a manuscript, I have forgotten what is and is not true. As a reader of White Houses, I can attest that Amy Bloom accomplishes both in this fine book.
