The Gatekeeper (2016) By Kathryn Smith

I would venture to guess that there have been thousands of books written about Franklin D. Roosevelt, if not tens of thousands.  In each of these books Missy LeHand, FDR’s personal secretary, is recognized with a paragraph, more often with merely a footnote.  With The Gatekeeper by Kathryn Smith, Missy is given her much deserved place in history. 

Prior to Dwight Eisenhower there was no such title as a Chief of Staff at the White House, though there was always someone around to administer the administration, as it was administering the nation.  This person wielded an immense amount of power, none more important than being the gatekeeper who controlled access to the President. To no surprise the person filling this position was always a man; that is until Franklin Roosevelt entrusted Marguerite LeHand with the authority.  She was appointed his personal secretary, and though she kept that title, she quickly absorbed the role we would today call Chief of Staff. 

Her standing in the Roosevelt administrations came about because FDR trusted her personal integrity, her loyalty to him, her analytic intelligence, and her ability to get things done.  He also knew she’d tell him what he needed to hear, whether he wanted to hear it or not. That he did this at a point in history when women’s empowerment was a new concept, but not yet a goal, speaks volumes.   

Much is made of two other women in the Roosevelt era.  One of course was FDR’s wife, the larger than life Eleanor Roosevelt who remade the role of First Lady, and earned herself a place in history quite independent of his.  She shared his political agenda, and had one of her own with no qualms about battling for it, even when that meant battling him. Yet, history will always also remember “the other woman,” Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, with whom FDR had a long-term affair.  Though common knowledge the affair wasn’t publicly discussed in an era when the personal life of a President was considered off limits to the press. This subject, fodder for so many of the books on FDR, is touched upon in The Gatekeeper only in that Missy, who was loved by both Eleanor and Franklin, and treated as though a member of the family, often served as a go between husband and wife, a role far afield from her official role in the administration.

A few months before Pearl Harbor, Missy suffered a stroke that left her unable to return to work.  For one who had been one of FDR’s closest confidants and operatives during his career as Governor of New York, at his side during the Depression when as President he was a-force-of-nature enactng the New Deal, at his side as a personal friend during the challenging and at times painful polio treatments; she now would be unable to serve during his war-time Presidency. The impact of that change in fortune was devastating to her. 

   

While history seems to have lost Missy, FDR knew her place in it.  The statement the White House issued at her death was:

“Memories of more than a score of years of devoted service enhance the sense of personal loss which Miss LeHand’s passing brings.  Faithful and painstaking, with a charm of manner inspired by tact and kindness of heart, she was utterly selfless in her devotion to duty.  Hers was a quiet efficiency which made her a real genius in getting things done.  Her memory will be held in affectionate remembrance and appreciation, not only by all members of our family, but the wide circle of those whose duties brought them into contact with her.”

By the time of Missy’s death, FDR’s health was also rapidly fading.  He would follow her in death a few months later. 

Recommendation:  Not just for history buffs, this is a fascinating book.

Los Alamos (1997) By Joseph Kanon

The literary formula of writing a fictional story on top of a historical event while risky is not uncommon, though seldom does it work as well as it does in Joseph Kanon’s book Los Alamos.

In his book, the plot centers on solving a murder, your standard detective story. Yet, the victim wasn’t just any victim, he was a security operative at Los Alamos, New Mexico -- the top secret location of the Manhattan Project, one of if not the most significant historical events of the 20th Century. The first successful detonation of an atomic bomb takes places at its Trinity test site in the final chapters of the book.

At Los Alamos, many of the biggest names in science worked under Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, often called the “father of the atomic bomb” to develop a weapon that could bring World War II to an end.  Many of the scientists were immigrants and refugees, many of them were also Jewish, working collectively against time to end the holocaust in Europe that many/most Americans were still blind to at the time. Determined as they were, all of the scientists were also aware that they were creating one evil, to address another. In the end, the war in Europe came to an end before the bomb was complete.  It's first and second military deployment would be on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hastening the end of the war in the Pacific theater, not on Germany.

                                                                                                             

To-date, there hasn’t been a third combat drop of an atomic weapon, which makes the moral debate in the nonfiction part of this story still relevant today, with nuclear aspirations in Iran and North Korea, and an anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, anti-science, and bellicose administration temporarily in command in the United States.

Returning to fiction, in Chapter 1 of the book the Project's military command limited the feared concern about the crime being viewed as espionage by internally dismissing it as a “homosexual murder,” an obsession of 1940’s and 1950’s America, when “pinko, commie, fag” was a favorite catchall condemnation, and telling everyone else that it was a botched robbery. They don't dismiss the investigation however, bringing in a non-military investigator from Washington to quietly discover what really happened. The gay stereotypes deployed throughout are infuriating, but an accurate reflection of the times.  Significant to the story is that because the murder is categorized as “homosexual” everyone is more than willing to sweep it under the rug, no one wants to talk about it, no one wants to risk coming forward.  That the initial categorization turns out wrong gets acknowledged towards the end of the book, but never corrected by any of the official record – such is history, infuriating or not.

This is the second novel by Joseph Kanon that I’ve read.  A few years ago, I reviewed his book Istanbul Passage, about the transition taking place in espionage after the Cold War.  While I liked the book, I had a geography problem. I believe Kanon failed to capture the essence of Istanbul (which in my mind has the romanticism personified by Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk), and faulted him for even trying.  Having never been to Los Alamos, I had no concerns about this title; except it ends up that I should have.  I’ve been to many of the surrounding communities in New Mexico where action in the book takes place, including nearby Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and the very remote Chaco Canyon, which is captured perfectly in the book, all-the-way down to the rattle snake’s rattle.

Recommendation:  You bet, completely engrossing.

Skinny Dip (2004) By Carl Hiaasen

Am I the only person in the known world who had never read a Carl Hiaasen book? He clearly is quite the prolific author, with multiple best-sellers and a huge following. Recently my friend Daniel sent me Hiaasen’s book Skinny Dip, it was a great read, actually fun might be a better term.  The genre would be "a summer read." 

Skinny Dip  is a page-turner, sort of a cross between Gone Girl and Mad Magazine.  It’s also one of those books where you really can’t say a lot about the book without giving a spoiler alert.  I’ll give you some limited information: it is set in the Florida Keys and the Everglades; it’s a detective-like story; and it has sharks, alligators, cobras and seniors as bit players.  Submerged way deep in the story is a serious subplot about pollution. 

It also has a least one hearty, irreverent, laugh per page.  Oh, and if you were planning a cruise for your anniversary, you might want to reconsider, wait until after you read this book. 

Recommendation:  Fun book, make a margarita and pull up a deck chair.