Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson by William Hazelgrove

This review first appeared in the Canon City Daily Record.


Social media and technology have made the private and secret choices of our nation's leaders hard to dispute or ignore. Yet following World War I, something unheard of happened in the White House: a woman became President of the United States. In Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson, William Hazelgrove describes how for five months Woodrow Wilson lay incapacitated and his second wife, Edith Galt Wilson, acted as leader and chief.

In the fall of 1919, while campaigning for the League of Nations across the country, President Wilson suffered a stroke that left him victim to paralysis, paranoia, unpredictable mood swings and cognitive loss. In her devotion to the man who courted and married her during his incumbency, Edith built a fortress of protection around her deathly ill husband. She governed "by assigning importance, and nothing was more important that the president's health." In short, quick moving chapters, Hazelgrove tells us how without much push back from Vice President Thomas Marshall - he didn't want the job of commander in chief - Mrs. Wilson was able to man and run a petticoat government with the minutest of help. This was unprecedented.

The last time a president was unable to perform the duties of his office was after the assassination attempt of President Garfield. Now, a self-taught woman would lead the country in the days after devastating war and destruction had rocked the world. 
 

With dramatic storytelling in this easy to follow narrative, Hazelgrove has introduced us to an ardent love story - full of romance and courtship - of a US President, a story of political intrigue and the tensions of war and government. Because it was a different time - a different era - this puppet presidency became a possibility, and a reality. Warfare tactics had changed; women were demonstrating for the right to vote; politics became an even more world-wide endeavor and the draft had become a nightmarish reality.

This is the true tale of the folly of love and medical ignorance. The morality of the life of a man or the term of a president is examined in a very human and logical way. With good solid and inclusive information, we are invited to see how exhaustion, stress, temperament, limited education and insular world views influenced weighty political decisions made with the signature of Edith Wilson. There were many who were incensed, and yet powerless to do anything about it.

In a romantic sort of irony, Mrs. Wilson died on Woodrow Wilson's birthday, in 1961. It was then that she was finally recognized, in European and American papers, as the "First Woman President."

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I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

This review can also be found in the Canon City Daily Record.


The Light Between Oceans is a complex tale, simply told, about a desire, a lie, and the hearts that break in consequence. In her debut work, M.L. Stedman creates a historical novel, defying obviousness and offering instead an intimate look at a man and a woman, both bearing deep wounds in post-World War I Australia. The events unfold against the backdrop of a harsh location - a lighthouse between the Indian and the Great Southern Oceans.

At times deceptively unaffected, and at times poetic, Ms. Stedman has done her research. Between the beautiful imageries of a land and sea that collide, she brings readers into a time and place where xenophobia is thick and controlling, solitude is desired by soldiers returning home, and a decision can wreak havoc for so many souls. Using the unique setting and its attending laws, a story is crafted; an ex-serviceman returning from war brings his bride to a remote lighthouse where he will be keeper and she will be his companion. After numerous miscarriages, their grief is deep and inconsolable. A dead man and an infant, wrapped in a sweater, wash up on Tom and Isabel's isolated shore and a choice made in despair offers them brief, incomplete happiness.

And then, of course, tides change, and secrets and lies can no longer be kept.

"On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff's edge, tending the small newly made driftwood cross." In this lovely romantic tale, questions arise. Can a tragedy also be a miracle? What makes a mother? Is deceit ever excusable - acceptable? Is love and loyalty more important than integrity? Shall we have faith in our own dreams and desires, or in what is or must be? What is grace - or betrayal? What does love really look like? What is the right decision after so many wrong choices?

In the telling of this story, Ms. Stedman has allowed readers to come to their own conclusions, even at times challenging a notion they once held as truth. The use of a vernacular peculiar to the area and time encourages readers to connect to each character and their dilemmas. Readers will be intrigued as they come to clear and definite conclusions as to what is right - what is just.

Waiting for the lies to come to light, waiting for an ending that leaves one satisfied and comfortable is difficult, but worth every page of this stunning and unassuming work. "The light will reappear" and the reader will be better for this journey into the hearts of a man and woman who dare to love a child


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