Q: Talk about her relationship with Lorena Hickok.
A: During the campaign she met a new friend, Lorena Hickok, who was the AP's number one woman political reporter, the highest paid female political journalist. And at one point Hick writes that she was very attracted Eleanor Roosevelt but Eleanor Roosevelt kept her at arm's length, and her arms were very long. By the time Eleanor Roosevelt got to the White House, she and Hick are very close, intimate friends. And the first year in the White House, from 1932, the period of the campaign through the first year in the White House, that is the period of their most intense relationship. And surely her friendship with Hick and her daily letters to Hick are one of the aspects, one of the things that really gives Eleanor Roosevelt strength, courage, vigor. She really is empowered and emboldened by her friends, and in particular in this time, by Hick.
Q: Hick was in love with her. Was Eleanor in love with Hick?
A: I think that Hick was in love with Eleanor, and Eleanor was in love with Hick. I think it's very important to look at the letters that are in my book, because unlike some of the recent published letters, I have both the personal and the political. And their relationship is about ardor. It's about fun. And it's also about politics. So these 10-15-page letters, which have been reduced in some versions to 2 paragraphs of ardor, don't tell the whole story. They're political letters. They're ardent letters. They're love letters, but they're politically driven. And their relationship is a very full relationship. I think this is one of the most important friendships and relationships of Eleanor Roosevelt's life, certainly at this time.
Well, the fact is, we can never know what people do in the privacy of their own rooms. The door is closed. The blinds are drawn. We don't know. I leave it up to the reader. But there's no doubt in my mind that they loved each other, and this was an ardent, loving relationship between two adult women.
And it's also a very stormy and troubled relationship. And so we can trace the arc of their love, which is a very specific one. Their arc is from longing, "I miss you, I need you, I can't live without you," to "I really need some private time. I need a lot of private time. I cannot make a commitment to one person. I'm a profoundly political woman. You need me. Earl needs me. The nation needs me." And the letters enable us to follow that arc of love and longing, and all of the ways in which two adult people juggle a very hard relationship, made much more difficult by the fact that Hick gives up her career for the woman she loves. And as we all know, one should never give up one's career for the man or woman one loves. It makes you an unhappy, dependent person, and it changes the ground you walk on.
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