Someone to Watch Over Me: A Portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Tortured Father Who Shaped Her Life

In his second biography about the Roosevelt family, Burns (A Golden Lad) focuses on the beautiful yet tragic relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt, her father and the charming younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt. Elliott and his wife, Anna Rebecca Ludlow Hall, were a well-known and attractive couple. Eleanor was a disappointment to her mother, but to Elliott she was “a miracle from heaven.” Where Anna was cold and indifferent toward Eleanor, Elliott was warm and loving, introducing Eleanor at an early age to the charity work that would serve her well into her final days. Unfortunately, Elliott was absent for most of Eleanor’s childhood. He drank heavily, suffered from severe seizures that may have been the result of his drinking, and was addicted to morphine and laudanum. Burns chronicles several failed attempts to send Elliott into rehab, a string of extramarital affairs, and an illegitimate son; eventually Theodore exiled Elliott to Virginia. Elliott and Eleanor constantly wrote to each other, and though Elliott died when Eleanor was only 10 years old, she kept their letters for the rest of her life. Burns’s work is captivating, suspenseful, and heartbreaking; this is how biographies should be written. Agent: Linda Konner, Linda Konner Literary. (Mar.)