No Ordinary Time

NO ORDINARY TIME

This book offers readers a new perspective of Franklin Deleanor and Eleanor Roosevelt. Most often, the Roosevelt s marriage is depicted as cold and aloof but here we have a most intimate portrait of their relationship coupled with a brilliant narrative of America in wartime. It is truly an extraordinary account of these years.

These two celebrated people are presented as human rather than only as the remarkable politicians and diplomats they were. Yet, their instincts in world and domestic affairs are also seen clearly throughout the text. They both overcame extraordinary challenges, Franklin s were physical, Eleanor s were emotional, and both remade their lives out of the tragedies that befell them. Both became public servants and both went on to make a difference in the world, each in their own way. They touched the people who knew them personally and they touched the people of the world. From them people gained hope and a feeling that one could in fact overcome tragedy and trouble. They had friends from all walks of life and from around the globe. In this book, the reader has a rare opportunity to become even more familiar with these two remarkable people.

No Ordinary Time fills a void in the literature about FDR and Eleanor in that it reveals their tenderness toward each other as well as their deep concerns about less fortunate people and about America, in general. The book also acts as a bridge between those Americans whose parents have told them about the Roosevelt era and those who know only what they read in history books. Individuals who have made such a dramatic difference in this country and in the world need to be represented to the population to keep their accomplishments and their personalities alive.

Of their relationship, Goodwin says, they kept relating to one another, yearning for one another. Their relationship was a lot more alive than has been previously thought, Eleanor was his conscience, his top domestic advisor, and, often literally, his legs Goodwin goes on to report that towards the end of his life, Franklin told his son about his deep love for Eleanor, she was the most remarkable woman I have ever met For perhaps the first time in any biography of either or both the Roosevelt s, instead of an emphasis on his alleged affairs, the focus here is on his undying love and devotion to his wife. This makes this book unique in this genre.

No Ordinary Time is unique in other ways, too. The reader is given a new and slightly different perception of life in the White House and in Hyde Park, both of which were always crowded with people. The Roosevelts were very seldom alone, especially during the war. Friends and advisers were constant guests in White House and friends were consistently with them at Hyde Park. Goodwin tells us that part of the reason for Franklin s constant invitations to friends was due to his paralysis; he couldn t get out to play golf or take walks so he kept himself surrounded by his friends to talk, view movies, or just be together.

Roosevelt was a person who gained respect and caring from people easily. One of his frequent visitors was Winston Churchill. They became close friends and often spent hours pouring over maps, drinking and talking. When asked how he felt about Roosevelt, Churchill said, “To encounter FDR was like opening your first bottle of champagne. Roosevelt is painted as an open, exuberant, intelligent person who developed friendships quickly. This is another different emphasis in this book that is not present in most texts about him.

In Eleanor s opinion, however, Churchill and Franklin always stayed up far too late which worried her. In fact, she remarked to a friend, “If anything happened to that man I couldn’t stand it. He is the truest friend. These are not the words of the cold, aloof, and sometimes jealous wife, which is so often promoted in biographies.

Goodwin shares how Eleanor came to fear her partnership with Franklin would be broken apart by the war. She looked upon him as her close friend who always loved to hear every detail of her travels when she returned but the war took his time and energy and he was no longer interested in her recounts. It was a difficult time for her and a challenging time for their marriage and one reader have not really heard expressed in this way. Eleanor, of course, went on to concentrate her energies on social matters of domestic importance like national health insurance, day care centers, and discrimination against blacks.

Goodwin consistently portrays the Roosevelt s with their humanness as well as their humanness. The reader learns, for example, that when Franklin was feeling extreme tension and concern about the war, he would imagine himself as a boy with his sled in Hyde Park, sledding down the hill, maneuvering each curve as he had done as a boy. He would see himself reach the bottom and pull his sled slowly back up the hill. He would repeat this scenario until he was able to relax and fall asleep. Through this imagining, Franklin also could forget, for a few minutes, the fact that his legs were no longer useful to him. Most biographers report FDR s courage with his paralysis, never mentioning the reality of his feelings about the fact that he could not walk.

Hyde Park was his retreat, the place he could return to for peace, where he could relax and gain enough sustenance to continue in his duties as the President. Certainly, this is a different image than has been written before. Always readers have been told of his brilliance and his victories, his courage and his strength, seldom has the reader had the opportunity to see Franklin Roosevelt as a man who worried, who lost his energy and who retreated to a place where he always felt revived.

The reader also sees a President who sometimes wishes his wife had less energy because he felt the same loss as she did — not having time together during the war — when he had a few minutes she was gone; when she had time at home, he was completely engrossed in the war efforts. This intimacy and the basic strength of their relationship has not been shown in previous biographies.

Finally, after the war ended and the country began to regain her strength, Roosevelt began to die. Goodwin says it was as if he had squeezed his buoyant health into the nation, and sacrificed himself in the doing of that. Eleanor was faced with the fact that she was losing her friend, her partner. She seemed to sense this would happen. “V.E. Day was a curious day,” (Eleanor) confessed to Maude Gray. “It was sad Franklin couldn’t have announced it. I felt no desire to celebrate. She had watched the war drain her husband s energies and the fact that he did not get to personally announce the end of the war was a disappointment to both of them. He had worked tirelessly, he had worried, he had become weakened, and he did not get the pleasure of making that important announcement.

Goodwin s work gives the public a new knowledge and feelings of a greater intimacy with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. Previous writers have emphasized their achievements, their alleged affairs, their for-show marriage but never has their been a text that presented these two remarkable people as loving each other so deeply. No other text has offered quotations revealing them with frailties and heartfelt concern for others. They lived during one of the most challenging times in the history of the world and Goodwin s title is perfect for those definitely were no Ordinary Times