From Publishers Weekly
Pottker (Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) has made a specialty of tell-alls about the wealthy and the powerful, from the Mars family to Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. But in Sara and Eleanora study of the complex, sometimes supportive, sometimes contentious relationship between FDR's wife and mother-Pottker embarks upon serious historical waters. Navigating across a story already well traversed by such superb writers and researchers as Blanche Wiesen Cook, Geoffrey Ward and Betty Boyd Caroli (the latter in 1998's The Roosevelt Women), Pottker unfortunately, despite her protestations, has nothing new to add to the well-worn tale of these two fascinating ladies. One comes away from Pottker's book wondering why she believed another retelling (one that comes at the story far less eloquently and authoritatively than previous efforts) to be necessary in the first place. The answer lies, apparently, in Pottker's revisionist tack when it comes to key details. For example, Pottker-somewhat astonishingly in the face of much testimony to the contrary-discounts the notion of Franklin ever having had a true affair with Eleanor's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. But the revision in question is purely speculative on Pottker's part, not based on evidence. Both Eleanor and Sara deserve-and have gotten in the past-far more accurate accounts of themselves. Readers should refer to those. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
For 50 years, the accepted wisdom has been that Eleanor Roosevelt was some kind of secular saint, while her mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt, was a monster. Both women have been misperceived, according to Jan Pottker's dual biography, but it is Eleanor's posthumous reputation that has waxed while Sara's has waned.During her lifetime, Mrs. James Roosevelt was the most admired presidential mother in American history. Time magazine featured the wealthy 76-year-old dowager on its cover during the week of FDR's first inaugural, lauding her aristocratic charm and special closeness to her son. At her death, in 1941, kings and potentates, her hosts during countless foreign trips, mourned her, as did more than 130 organizations that had benefited from her largesse.So when and why did popular perception of Sara change? Pottker cites the 1958 success of Dore Schary's Broadway melodrama "Sunrise at Campobello" as a major factor. The play -- later a movie -- portrayed Sara at 66 as an overbearing matriarch who patronized her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and who discouraged her only son from entering what she considered the sordid world of politics.Adoring relatives now condemn the trashing. "That was not the way she was," says a great-granddaughter. "She never raised her voice." Eleanor's former son-in-law blames her for the derogatory characterization, claiming that she encouraged it to garner sympathy for herself.Eleanor had indeed cooperated with the playwright, ostensibly in exchange for royalties to be paid to her cash-strapped children. She publicly declared the play to be "excellent" while allowing its unfairness to Sara, "who was a great personality, never petty." Privately, however, Eleanor complained that "Franklin's children were more my mother-in-law's children than they were mine." In this lies the crux of the matter.Eleanor and Franklin's son Elliott once said that his mother was austere and distant: "The warmth in our lives came from Father and Granny." He and his four siblings (another died in infancy) relished the many weeks spent each year at Hyde Park, their grandmother's Hudson Valley estate. Sara, who saw that Eleanor had neither aptitude nor taste for child-rearing, soon stepped in to fill the void. Surely she must have been appalled to hear that Eleanor had hung her first-born out the window in a cage for air, rather than take the baby to Central Park.The story of Eleanor's wretched childhood, which left her feeling victimized, is familiar. Her alcoholic father and superficial mother neglected her. At 10, she was orphaned, and a cold grandmother sent her abroad to school. Craving closeness and suffering low self-esteem, Eleanor was incredulous when her handsome, gregarious fifth cousin Franklin proposed. How could he want a buck-toothed, 19-year-old introvert like her?Actually she was quite a catch. She had some money, and her Uncle Theodore happened to be president of the United States. Franklin admired TR more than any other man and hoped to emulate his trajectory in politics.Though full of doubt about Franklin's constancy, Eleanor accepted him anyway. Sara felt that her son, still in college at 23, was far too young for family responsibilities. But the president approved Eleanor's choice, and traveled to New York on St. Patrick's Day, 1905, to give her away.Once Franklin indeed strayed -- with his wife's secretary, Lucy Mercer -- Eleanor decided to leave. Sara, certain that he would be president one day, ruled out divorce by threatening to withhold her financial support. Eleanor shut down emotionally after that -- at least, until her midlife friendships with several career women, whom Pottker delicately calls her "cronies" but whom FDR referred to as "he-shes."While Franklin underwent never-ending physical therapy at Warm Springs, Ga., Eleanor wrote dreary newspaper columns and crisscrossed the country, making political speeches on his behalf. Always reluctant to share her husband's spotlight, she had no scruples about stepping into her own.She once told a biographer that, had she matured earlier, she might have been more tolerant of Sara. Yet the animosity she felt toward her mother-in-law was that of a woman, not a girl. Eleanor envied Sara's beauty, her sunny disposition, her fluency in German and French, her brilliant skills as a hostess and property manager, and her easy empathy with the disadvantaged. Moreover, she resented the fact that Sara's fortune (made by her father in the Chinese opium trade) subsidized her own household. Even in the White House, the Franklin Roosevelts received the modern equivalent of $1.4 million a year from the generous Sara, who (contrary to myth) visited sparingly. Above all, Eleanor was jealous of the bottomless love Franklin felt for his mother. After Sara's death, she said, "It is dreadful to have lived so close to someone for 36 years and to feel no deep affection or sense of loss." Inconsolable, Franklin wore a black arm band for more than a year.It is a pity that Pottker does not document and tell this poignant story better. Her source notes are bewilderingly inadequate. She lists books, articles and archives, but never specifies where particular quotes come from. She cites four books having to do with race and Booker T. Washington in one chapter, yet mentions neither subject in the text. The material is badly arranged, minor characters are sketchy, and the prose often lacks sequitur. Too many paragraphs merely list social engagements. TR is familiarly referred to throughout as "Teddy," a name that he detested.An editor should have caught some errors. On one page, James Roosevelt is 52 when he met Sara, and on another he is 56. (The former age is correct.) It was in Manhattan, not Oyster Bay, that they fell in love. Franklin was almost 19 in December 1900, rather than "not quite eighteen" or "nearly twenty-one," as Pottker states on consecutive pages. Henry Adams's Washington house was demolished, not made part of the Hay-Adams Hotel. Reviewed by Sylvia Jukes MorrisCopyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Booklist
Eleanor Roosevelt is revered around the world for her human rights advocacy, but she was extremely complicated, and everyone who writes about her describes a somewhat different person. Pottker wrote about Jackie Kennedy Onassis' relationship with her mother in Janet and Jackie (2001), and now turns to the infamously contentious relationship between Eleanor and her formidable mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt. Sara is remembered as being domineering and interfering, but she was also one of the most powerful, wealthy, and admired women of her time. She not only bankrolled her son's large household (he and Eleanor had five children), she was also, Pottker cogently argues, a tremendous help to her orphaned daughter-in-law. And her life story is riveting. Tall, striking, energetic, adaptable, and self-possessed, she survived a shocking litany of family tragedies, became an ardent philanthropist, and enjoyed life to the hilt. Whatever domestic struggles Eleanor suffered under her mother-in-law's reign, Sara's unstinting support did enable her the freedom to become a world leader. Pottker's resurrection of a revered First Mother and an American original is an important and thoroughly absorbing addition to the Roosevelt canon. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


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


Review
"A compelling and engaging biography of two independent women whose story is an inspiration to all."


Review
"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 FDR



Book Description
We think we know the story of Eleanor Roosevelt--the shy, awkward girl who would redefine the role of First Lady, becoming a civil rights activist and an inspiration to generations of young women. As legend has it, the bane of Eleanor's life was her demanding and domineering mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt. Biographers have overlooked the complexity of a relationship that had, over the years, been reinterpreted and embellished by Eleanor herself.

Through diaries, letters, and interviews with Roosevelt family and friends, Jan Pottker uncovers a story never before told. The result is a triumphant blend of social history and psychological insight--a revealing look at Eleanor Roosevelt and the woman who made her historic achievements possible.



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.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Everybody thinks they know the story: Shy, put-upon Eleanor Roosevelt battled her domineering, manipulative mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt, to triumph on the public stage in spite of efforts to keep her down. It is true that Eleanor Roosevelt was a unique woman who profoundly influenced the course of the twentieth century. But her achievements would not have been possible without the guidance of Sara Delano Roosevelt. Born into a wealthy family, Sara enjoyed a life of both privilege and adventure: She descended from twelve Mayflower family lines and yet, as a child, lived in China far from her Yankee roots. Her gilded circle in young adulthood was Knickerbocker New York. Her marriage at age twenty-six to a man twice her age set her in the Victorian frame in which they raised Franklin.

When Franklin married Eleanor, she was a young and awkward girl, in sharp contrast to Sara, who was worldly, confident, and in possession of all the social graces Eleanor seemed to lack. From the early days of Eleanor's marriage to her emergence as a public figure, Sara would be Eleanor's greatest female influence -- nurturing her independence and supporting the young couple through difficult times. The inevitable rough spots in their relationship were later dramatized in a time when strong women were vilified and traditional values were suspect. Sara and Eleanor, the only book to examine this compelling relationship, is a triumphant blend of social history and psychological insight -- a dynamic look at two of American history's most important women. Through extensive research and personal interviews. Jan Pottker offers new stories and interprets how the intersecting lives of Sara and Eleanor produced two extraordinary women.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Pottker (Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) has made a specialty of tell-alls about the wealthy and the powerful, from the Mars family to Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. But in Sara and Eleanor a study of the complex, sometimes supportive, sometimes contentious relationship between FDR's wife and mother Pottker embarks upon serious historical waters. Navigating across a story already well traversed by such superb writers and researchers as Blanche Wiesen Cook, Geoffrey Ward and Betty Boyd Caroli (the latter in 1998's The Roosevelt Women), Pottker unfortunately, despite her protestations, has nothing new to add to the well-worn tale of these two fascinating ladies. One comes away from Pottker's book wondering why she believed another retelling (one that comes at the story far less eloquently and authoritatively than previous efforts) to be necessary in the first place. The answer lies, apparently, in Pottker's revisionist tack when it comes to key details. For example, Pottker somewhat astonishingly in the face of much testimony to the contrary discounts the notion of Franklin ever having had a true affair with Eleanor's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. But the revision in question is purely speculative on Pottker's part, not based on evidence. Both Eleanor and Sara deserve and have gotten in the past far more accurate accounts of themselves. Readers should refer to those. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Mel Berger, William Morris. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews