PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.
1. What are you currently reading? The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady by Heath Hardage Lee. I recently finished a long and quite balanced biography of Richard Nixon and it left me wondering about Pat. On one hand, the Nixon's had what appeared to be a good marriage. There have never been any rumors of infidelity, separation or serious, ongoing domestic discord. Her pregnancies were joyous and uneventful (though one of her girls was born with a broken shoulder, thanks to 1940s-era obstetrics). As First Lady, she was on the "Most Admired" lists. Then she had to endure Watergate and leave the White House engulfed in scandal, knowing her accomplishments and place in history would be forever tainted. I hope this book will tell me how she dealt with all the anger she must have felt, and where that anger was directed.
I didn't realize she was had always been a very complicated woman. Her mother died when she was just 12, leaving Pat to clean and cook for her father and brothers. Her father took ill and she became his nurse until his death when she was in high school. She had to wait and earn money before she could go to college, since times were hard and higher education for her brothers was the priority. She had a long list of jobs before she finally got the degree she longed for. Then she got a teaching in Whittier, CA, where she met Dick Nixon. She wasn't sure she wanted to marry him. After being responsible for others her whole life, she liked being independent. She liked having her own money. Yet marry him she did. I was intrigued by her letters to him during WWII. Yes, of course she missed him. Yes, of course, she prayed for his safe return. But boy, she enjoyed that alone time in San Francisco when he was stationed in the Pacific. I admit I'm intrigued by this self-sufficient woman.
Ms. Hardage Lee tells the story in a linear fashion. She relies a great deal on the recollections and writings of Julie Nixon Eisenhower, so I question how balanced it is. But it's giving me a window into the life of a formidable woman I grew up on without knowing anything about her.
PS There's an ongoing compare/contrast with the much better documented life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The author assumes Jackie had a much easier go of it. Financially? Certainly. But the Kennedy marriage was famously marked by infidelity. She endured five difficult pregnancies and brought only two babies home. Oh yeah, and she had to wipe her husband's brains off her face, so there's that. Besides, why do women have to pitted against one another – and by a female biographer? I admit it's pissing me off.
2. What did you recently finish reading? Murder on a Mystery Tour by Marian Babson. A young English couple have a cat named Ackroyd and a rambling estate called Chortlesby Manor. Maintaining the big old house is expensive, so to make ends meet they rent it out to an American company that hosts "mystery tours," aka staged murder mystery weekends for well-heeled tourists. There's a snowstorm, an unexpected guest arrives, the roads become impassable and someone is murdered. Not as part of the staged mystery, for real.
At first I was into this book. Babson was good at setting the scene and taking us backstage as the innkeepers prepare for the mystery weekend. But then it just got stupid. No one with an IQ higher than that of a gnat would behave as these tourists did upon discovering the murder. I stuck with it because I'm stubborn, but I'm glad it was only 220 pages so I don't have to resent wasting that much time on it.3. What will you read next? I don't know.
