Yay! I Finished Another Book - FDR's Funeral Train by Robert Klara

And, no, I did not read this book in its Kindle edition.  Yep, I need an actual book in my hands.  With pages that turn.  The kind where you can look and see just how much you've read and how much you have to go before you finish. 

But, I digress...

The last book I surveyed here was "FDR's Deadly Secret," which detailed how the public was duped by Franklin Roosevelt's doctors for the past two years of his Presidency.  He really had cancer that spread through his system and, most notably, his brain.  Another Chief Executive with a conflicted thought process.  Except, I guess, FDR had a good excuse.

Well, "FDR's Funeral Train" by Robert Klara is a perfect follow-up in this saga.  Ironically, both books by separate authors came out at virtually the same time.  Catnip for us kitties who can't get enough kibble about the multi-dimensional FDR.    A great wartime President.  A questionable failure on the domestic and economic front.  And, apparently, a fireball in the sack. 

Back when FDR went buns up in 1945, the major form of transportation in the United States was the rail system.  Of course, Roosevelt had made whistle stop tours an almost daily occurrance during his election campaigns.  In the days before Air Force One, there was a Presidential railcar.  The Ferdinand Magellan.   It was the lap of luxury on the rails.  And it would be part of the final ride that FDR ever took.

The book opens in Warm Springs, Georgia when Roosevelt grabs for his forehead in anguish as he is sitting for a portrait commissioned by his longtime girlfriend, Lucy Mercer, who just happens to be in the room while Eleanor is off in Washington worrying about the great unwashed.  Within an hour, FDR is dead.  And Lucy and her painter scoot out of there faster than you can say "New Deal."   That's just the beginning of a captivating recount of Roosevelt's last days on the top side of the front lawn.

There is actually something magical and majestic about the transistion of power in such a civilized and methodical manner.  The President of the United States is dead.  The Vice President Harry Truman is sworn in.  And the haberdasher from Missouri suddenly realizes that his boss hasn't kept him in the loop on some significant issues.  The creation and testing of the atomic bomb, for instance.  Another sterling example of how the revered FDR was not exactly the genius history has made him out to be.

Meanwhile, the now widowed Eleanor hightails it down to Georgia and the Warm Springs folks work overtime to make sure that the now former First Lady doesn't find out who the hubby was diddling with when God sent his bags down to the lobby.  Of course, before the casket lining is warm, Eleanor does figure it out.  And this is something that she must process along with her grief over the next several days.  Escorting his body on the rails from Georgia to Washington and then ultimated to Hyde Park, New York where he is ultimately planted on his family's estate.

Also in the mix on that train are politicians jockeying for space with the new administration, Roosevelt family members trying to figure out what was next, and a new President who is taking over the country in the middle of a World War.  Klara wastes nary a word or a punctuation mark in weaving a tight, but concise depiction of four days in the history of this country.  Despite the fact that he was ill, the death of FDR was almost as shocking as the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.  And the outpouring of grief in 1945 was as great.  Thanks to the author's expert narration, you feel every sigh and tear.

The book also acts as a wonderful description of American train travel in the 1940s.  You learn how train cars are attached, how routes are planned, and how intricate the tracking system was.  Indeed, part of the FDR funeral train route in New York followed the Hudson line that I still frequently take into Manhattan.  In many ways, much of that gridwork still exists and you realize that real history happened just outside those Metro North train doors.

Klara touches on a bit the mystery behind FDR's death.  Reporters on the train ride home were already speculating that the President was a lot sicker than his doctors were reporting.  But, that's not the real focus of the tale.  It's about the single united emotion that our country has felt at very isolated moments in our nation's history.  When our leaders change.  And you realize just how powerful a document our Constitution really is.

Dinner last night:  Homemade risotto wtih squash, sweet potatoes, and peas.