White Houses

Lorena "Hick" Hickok was a hard-boiled newspaper reporter, but she showed her tender side to the love of her life, Eleanor Roosevelt. In this new novel by the acclaimed author of Lucky Us, Hick tells her story in her own brash voice. Hick and Eleanor could not have been more different. Eleanor was genteel, patrician, and private, the opposite of Lorena. Both women had unhappy childhoods, but Hick's was brutal. She escaped grinding poverty and an abusive father in South Dakota, working as a hired girl before joining a circus. By the time Eleanor meets her in 1932, Hick is a respected AP reporter. Hick moves into the White House, taking a job in the Roosevelt administration, though Eleanor's portly companion was usually cut out of any official photos. Told from Hick's perspective, the novel embraces not just the White House but Hick's little white house on Long Island, hence the title.