Nat'l Bk Award Novelist Amy Bloom Discusses Her Latest Novel WHITE HOUSES with Blanche W. Cook

This month is Women's History Month at Roosevelt House and it commenced with a stellar evening of discussion with 2 great writers: Amy Bloom ("Away", "Come to Me") and historian Blanche Cook ("Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1,2 &3").   Ms. Cook was a Co-Founder & Co-Chair of the Freedom of Information & Access Com. of the Org. of Amer. Historians.  The gist of the talk from both Bloom's novel & Cook's biography of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) was the lesbian relationship between  ER & her longtime companion, Lorena Hickok. (LH).  The heart of these 2 great historic women, ER as FDR's active advisor & continual social advocate.  LH was a maverick in journalist circles covering war stories, historical events and interviews.  Their books focused on their love and drew outward on their amazing accomplishments.  Cook, a renown historian focused mostly on wartime was militant in her assertions there were denials & cover-ups pertaining to ER & LH maintaining a lesbian relationship.  Cook spoke of having read the many written correspondences between the women that corroborated their love and the varying stages of their relationship.  "My writing is based on facts that can be documented" Cook claimed.  Bloom also read the letters as research for her novel written from curiosity about the two women's alliance.  Bloom said,"{It} was a pleasure to write about their love affair.  What doesn't look beautiful is beautiful".  I found her candor refreshing.  She admitted having slept through history in school.  I was also intrigued with her confessed struggles in finding the narrative voice for the novel.  "It was not going to be ER voice narrating the novel."  The women discussed the pendulum of acceptance of homosexuality that sprang from a homophobic period in the 30s & 40s.  But, as Bloom stated, "The arch bends slowly.  I was interested in writing a rhapsody of homosexuality which is of interest to me as both as novelist & a queer woman.  These were great complex people and their's a great love story".   Both women writers' approaches to writing varied.  Cook relied solely on documentation & facts.  Bloom said all her novels play with time and memory allowing the reader to enter into the world of the story and enabling the reader to be present.  As a novelist Bloom eloquently her intent was "to hold facts up to the light creating a relationship with an understanding from the inner and outer exploration of their world and love."