The First Ladies

As photographers snap pictures, the pilot taxis the small plane to Tuskegee runway.  That in itself isn’t remarkable enough to bring the press to the small Alabama town.  It’s the fact that this pilot is black, and his passenger is the First Lady of the United States – Eleanor Roosevelt.  Mrs. Roosevelt is visiting the Tuskegee airmen along with her confidant and friend Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, a leader among black business owners and activists, also known as the First Lady of the Struggle.  Their unique friendship and a fateful meeting many years before created an opportunity for change and desegregation at the federal level.

The partnership between The First Ladies is paralleled in some ways with the partnership of the two authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.  Writing as a team often leaves a story disjointed and missing continuity of voice, but that is not the case here.  Their writing styles meld seamlessly onto the page and deliver unique and unforgettable dialogue between our two heroines.  The pair tackle discussions of race relations and discrimination in a sensitive way that opens a readers’ eyes to their own assumptions, much like Mrs. Bethune did for Mrs. Roosevelt.

I give The First Ladies 4 out of 5 stars. I am familiar with Mrs. Roosevelt’s story, but learned so much about Mrs. Bethune through this book. I appreciate the structure of the book with chapters rotating between the two characters to give an equality to the points of view delivered throughout.  However, I was frustrated to learn of the liberties the authors took with several events in the historical timeline.  As documented in the Historical Note in the back of the novel, the authors adjusted the year of several events to fit their goals.  The writers also included characters in historical events where it can be proven they were not in attendance.  Minor dalliances with timeline can be useful and appreciated in historical fiction, but I cannot move past the knowing inclusion of the characters in events that create a false narrative, and, therefore, cannot give this book higher marks.

I would recommend this book for readers looking to learn more about the work done behind the scenes by Mrs. Bethune or the organizations she led such as the National Youth Administration, the National Council of Negro Women, and the National Association of Colored Women.  I am disappointed to say I was unfamiliar with her work before reading this book, but am looking forward to learning much more about her!  I would also recommend this book to readers interested in the Civil Rights movement prior to the more prominent leadership of Dr. King, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Freedom Riders.

I was excited to see The First Ladies as a Book of the Month choice in July – I greatly enjoyed the first work by this duo, The Personal Librarian.  I chose this book for the Booklist Queen Reading Challenge prompt “a contemporary fiction bestseller”.  This was an instant NY Times Bestseller and is relevant to today’s era.  This is a wonderful book and I thoroughly enjoyed it until the final few chapters when the authors took a few too many liberties with the events. I am looking forward to the next book by the pair but am hopeful they stay more accurate with the timeline in the future.

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What I’m Reading

• Current print book: Hang the Moon, Jeanette Walls
• Current audio book: Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
• Book I’m most looking forward to: Triptych, Karen Slaughter