Beloved Island: Franklin & Eleanor and the Legacy of Campobello

Klein successfully evokes the spirit of summer days at Campobello Island--in the Bay of Fundy, off the province of New Brunswick, Canada--which not only served as a summer home for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, but also provided a peaceful backdrop to a life of marital troubles, illness (Franklin contracted polio one summer at Campobello) and the hectic activity and public scrutiny of political life. As Klein relates, FDR was first introduced to Campobello as an infant by his parents, James and Sara. He grew to love hiking, fishing and sailing, and became an expert sailboat navigator. His wife-to-be, Eleanor, was invited to Campobello, a proper setting for introductions among wealthy young men and women, and the two fell in love. She enjoyed the relaxed life there, and later found refuge in a cottage that she and FDR acquired; indeed, it was the only place she felt truly at home. Klein, a communications manager who lives on an island off Maine, successfully evokes the Northeast island aesthetic, a summer haven for many of the most privileged Americans, particularly before the 1920s and '30s. Much of the political and personal events he provides as background material, such as FDR's affair with Lucy Mercer, have been widely written about, but the everyday anecdotes about Campobello are diverting and interesting. Eleanor and FDR fished together (""Eleanor was usually more successful than Franklin""), sailed on their boats, the Half Moon and Vireo, and took numerous cliff walks. After being stricken with polio in 1921, FDR did not return to his ""beloved island"" for 12 years, although Eleanor continued to visit with their children and friends--for, as Klein so well illustrates, it was a mainstay in their busy and not always joyful lives. (Their home is now in the middle of Roosevelt Campobello Park, jointly created in 1964 by the U.S. and Canada and frequented by tourists.) Photos. (Oct.)