Book review: "Eleanor Roosevelt vol.3" by Blanche Wiesen Cook

 I remember being spellbound fifteen years ago when I read the first two volumes of Blanche Wiesen Cook's bio of ER. I impatiently waiting for the last volume, checking every few years if it had a publication date. What a disappointment this is. While the first two volumes were full of insights into ER, I felt this one listed a lot of facts and didn't go in any depth in the human element. I suppose Volumes 1 and 2 benefited from Wiesen Cook's novel (at the time) argument that ER and Lorena Hickok were "very, very close friends", which was a bit scandalous when Wiesen Cook first made her case but probably contributed to selling books and is more accepted now. In Volume 3 Wiesen Cook doesn't have a big revelation to make, or perhaps she got tired of her subject. (Wiesen Cook is in her mid-70s now and a project of that scope does take its toll on its author.) In addition, the part about ER's life after FDR is blatantly rushed - something just about every reader agrees on, including the New York Times reviewer. The 3 volumes taken together will make this the definitive biography of ER for years to come, but one can only hope BWC revises Volume 3 and expands the end before it is printed in paperback.