Hick then recalls the day she broke up with Eleanor, having realized that Eleanor would never be able to leave Franklin, so their relationship was unsustainable. She refused to do so, but she was rattled by the conversation. This causes Hick to recall a meeting she had with Fiske in 1934 in which he threatened to tell the world about Hick's relationship with Eleanor if she did not start supplying him with secret information about the goings-on at the White House. To some extent, Hick believes that Missy died of a broken heart from the way Franklin treated her.Įleanor reads a letter from her cousin, Parker Fiske, who recalls Franklin and Eleanor's wedding day before going into detail about his tortured life as a closeted gay man. When Missy died in 1944, Franklin failed to attend the funeral, sending along a condolence letter instead which praised her diligent work as a secretary and made no mention of their personal relationship.

Consequently, while Hick respects Franklin for what he has done as president, she believes he is a callous man. In a rage over Franklin's refusal to see her, Missy attempted to set fire to her room and was subsequently moved to her sister's house in Massachusetts. She was taken to her room to convalesce, and became increasingly distraught as Franklin failed to visit her. Hick recalls a party at the White House in 1941 in which Franklin's secretary and another of his former lovers, Missy LeHand, suffered a stroke. Hick assures Anna that Eleanor will forgive her, because Eleanor is a kind and generous person. Eleanor is angry because Anna invited one of Franklin's former lovers to his deathbed. Hick receives a phone call from Eleanor's daughter Anna, who asks for help smoothing things over with her mother. Hick then briefly traveled with a circus before moving to Chicago to live with her aunt and finishing school. Eleanor grew up wealthy and attended boarding school, whereas Hick grew up in poverty in Bowdle, South Dakota where she was raped and abused by her father before being sent out to work as a maid at age 13. She recalls meeting Eleanor for the first time while working as a journalist and taking a train trip with her in which the two women shared memories from their respective childhoods.

Hick recalls the early years of their relationship, how she lived in the White House and vacationed with Eleanor in Vermont and Quebec. The novel opens on Eleanor Roosevelt's New York City apartment where her longtime friend and lover Lorena “Hick” Hickok has recently arrived to comfort the First Lady after the death of her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Bloom, Amy.

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