Publishers Weekly
10/24/2016
Celebrity biographer Mann (Tinseltown) extends his reach to politics with a chronicle of the Roosevelts that spans the presidencies of both Teddy and Franklin. Mann posits that the two Roosevelt clans, that of Oyster Bay (Teddy’s branch) and that of Hyde Park (F.D.R.’s branch), were for the first half of the 20th century locked in combat for political ascendency. Uninterested in the substantive policies of the Roosevelts, Mann instead depicts a family whose members are defined by single-minded personal and political ambitions, awash in dysfunction that includes betrayals, rampant alcoholism, suicide, affairs, divorces, unhappy marriages, illegitimate children, the abandonment of familial loyalties, and more traditional political dirty tricks. Mann also speculates, based on sound sources, that Eleanor had a long-lived same-sex relationship and another possible physical relationship with a younger male protégé while first lady. Mann is an accomplished and persuasive writer, and he builds affecting portraits of his players that generally support his underlying themes. His weakness lies in his inability to leave unmined any Roosevelt family peccadillo. Also, Mann’s choice to emphasize the Roosevelt family dynamics and virtually ignore the contemporaneous historic events may leave readers with a sense of incompleteness. Agent: Malaga Baldi, Malaga Baldi Literary. (Dec.)
Library Journal
10/15/2016
Frequent biographer Mann (Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand) synthesizes previous histories and uncovers notable primary sources, including much material on former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt's illegitimate half brother, to demonstrate the struggles within the Roosevelt dynasty, based as much on rival personalities as on differing political policies. Mann's critical approach unveils the measures the Roosevelts took to conceal the social transgressions of nonconforming family members. Patriarch and 26th U.S. president Theodore (Republican) pushed his own children toward often unrealistic competitive goals and institutionalized his alcoholic brother Elliott (Eleanor's father), limiting Elliott's contact with his children. Theodore's cousin and 32nd U.S. president Franklin Delano's (Democrat) benign neglect of his progeny left them relatively directionless. As Mann points out, the antagonism was not only between the Republican Oyster Bay and Democratic Hyde Park Roosevelts, emphasized in the 2014 documentary The Roosevelts, but also within each family branch. VERDICT General readers will want to include this insightful and provocative work among their volumes on the consequential and multidimensional Roosevelt family.—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2016-09-19
A compulsively readable account of the decadeslong rivalries, grudges, and battles between and within the Roosevelt families of Oyster Bay and Hyde Park.The most direct link between the two distant clans was Eleanor, daughter of Theodores younger, philandering, alcoholic brother Elliot. Pitied by the family for her timidity and homeliness, Eleanor grew up to marry Franklin of the Hyde Park Roosevelts and become the most consequential first lady ever. Mann (Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood, 2014, etc.) sketches the career progress and high achievement of the three Roosevelt titans, but he focuses on the private history and the cost of their unceasing quest for political power to themselves, their spouses, lovers, children, and close friends: how Teddy Roosevelts fear of scandal caused him to spurn his brother; how his example, his drive, and ambition distorted the lives of his sons, particularly Ted Jr., whose political career never quite measured up, and Kermit, whose shady business dealings and alcoholism led to suicide; how his troubled bond with daughter Alice led to her own hollow marriage, her thwarted ambition for her brother Ted, and her bitterness at the rise of the usurpers, Franklin and Eleanor. Eleanors refusal even to meet her illegitimate brother, Elliot Roosevelt Mann, whose story will be new to most readers, her vexed relations with her mother-in-law and her own children, and her complicated, intimate attachments to female friends all receive Manns close attention. He also spotlights FDRs affairs and the unconventional life of his cousin Jimmy. Kermits doomed son, Alices affair with Sen. William Borah, Eleanors remorseless taunting of cousin Tedthe stories tumble out until no skeleton remains closeted. Perhaps best known for his popular film biographies and histories, and thus no stranger to tales of scandal and coverup, feuds and intrigue, Mann writes sympathetically about all the Roosevelts but particularly the black sheep, the nonconformists whose births into this powerful family imposed special burdens.
