Many of her books are short story collections that excellence at compression she brings to her novels, distilling life down to its very essence. For what she can impart about the human condition, and for her ability to set out a rollicking story that entertains from the first page to the last, Bloom should be on every list and in every bookshelf.īloom is a psychotherapist and writes like someone who has spent a deal of time studying the way people act and react. Writing in The New York Times in 2012, novelist Meg Wolitzer posed the question of Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot: if it had been written by a woman, 'would it have received a great deal of serious literary attention?' Or would it have been 'relegated to 'Women's Fiction,'… where books emphasising relationships and the interior lives of women are often relegated?' I was reminded of this when reading White Houses, Bloom's ninth book of fiction (and fourth novel). The dark girl sighed and they slipped off their shoes.' The blonde said if she never cleaned another toilet again, it'd be too soon. I packed my bag.' Her descriptions are a constant delight: 'She was a skinny roughhouser from a shitbox Southern town.' And she has a Chandleresque approach to painting people and their surrounds: 'A dark, chunky girl and a slim, ratty blonde sat in the booth in front of me, sharing a Moxie, folding their straw wrappers into a chain. Her sentences are rhythmic and witty: 'I was between girlfriends and between dogs. Bloom's imagining of both of these characters and their complicated love affair is entirely convincing.

Hick's own upbringing is seen in stark contrast to the aristocratic world of the Roosevelts, and although the women were a study in contrasts, they were each comfortable in those male-dominated worlds of journalism and politics. It's impossible to imagine a secret like this being kept today but then, Eleanor and Hick could go out together and even if they were recognised, people rarely had a camera.

Instead, she found her sharp, interesting and interested – the kind of person who really listens, and with many ardent admirers, of whom Hick quickly became the fondest.Ĭompromised as a reporter, Hick quit her job and Franklin found her a position working on the New Deal within his White House, where she moved in and had her own bedroom.

After reporting the Lindbergh kidnapping for the Associated Press, she was sent to cover the 'dull and pleasant' Eleanor Roosevelt. Bad luck followed good and she had a roller-coaster of a time, including a stint at a circus, before ascending journalism's greasy rope. Hick's upbringing was tragic and ended early, with her sent away from home and left to fend for herself at 13.

Amy bloom white houses review