WILL UNWOUND #377: “Will’s Mystery Project – ‘Murder in the Map Room’ by Elliott Roosevelt
March 4, 2011The most important person in the Obama White House might very well be a 72 year old woman named Mrs. Marian Robinson, and I’ll bet that most of you have no idea who she is. Marian Robinson is our nation’s “First Granny.” She is the mother of First Lady, Michelle Obama, and she is the full time live-in caregiver of Michelle and Barack’s two young daughters.
Now here’s another trivia question for you: Do you know the names and ages of the two Obama girls? I have to admit that I had to look up that info: Malia is 12 and Sasha is 9. The Obamas have done such a wonderful job of sheltering these children from the media that we don’t even know their names. Contrast this approach with the way the Clintons hung poor Chelsea out to dry with one photo op after another to create an image of the perfect American family.
Kudos to Mrs. Robinson. She seems to be the rare Presidential relative who has no agenda other than to care for two children. Remember Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lillian? She couldn’t seem to get enough publicity, and how about brother Billy? He certainly created his own pile of embarrassments for the Carter White House. Speaking of grandmothers, it always seemed that Clinton’s mother, Virginia, managed to get herself into the tabs whenever she was feeling neglected. No, you really don’t fully appreciate Mrs. Robinson until you think back to the family member fiascos in other Presidential administrations.
I always thought that the great irony of the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is that he and his wife Eleanor did so much for the families of America during the Great Depression and yet their own family seemed so much at loose ends. The final tote board for the five children reveals 19 marriages and 15 divorces.
Middle child, Elliott Roosevelt, in addition to gaining fame for his five marriages and an Air Force procurement scandal, also gained notoriety for his work as an author. It’s interesting that the New York Times included this literary note in his obituary:
- “His trilogy of “tell-all” books about life behind the scenes in the Roosevelt White House and at the family home in Hyde Park, N.Y., caused a rift in the family in the early 1970′s, leading his sister and three brothers to publicly disavow the books.”
But the family “tell all” books were just the beginning of Elliott’s literary career. He also wrote a series of 20 murder mysteries featuring his mother, Eleanor, as the resident White House detective. Showing a modicum of family diplomacy, Elliott waited until his mother died before he published these whodunits.
The great genre fans among you of course know that the great mystery of the Eleanor Roosevelt novels is whether or not Elliott actually wrote them. There is a strong school of thought that they were actually ghostwritten.
I think I can definitively clear up that mystery once and for all. The book I read for my mystery project was Murder in the Map Room. It takes place during the World War II years, and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek has come calling at the White House to plead for American aid for her husband’s sagging war torn government. A shoe salesman, of all people, is found dead in the map room just a few feet from Madame’s bedroom. I’m sure you want to hear more but I just can’t bear to discuss this book seriously.
Was it ghostwritten? Absolutely not. People with no talent hire ghostwriters to present their ideas with literary competency. This book is a mess. The characters are cardboard (how do you turn your mother and father, two of the most famous people in American history, into caricatures?), the style is choppy, and the plot is ridiculous. No way in heck this book could have been ghostwritten.
How many stars does it get? I’d like to give it none but Elliott was a one star general so let’s give it one star out of five.
Margaret Truman’s Washington mysteries are the mysteries that you want to read by a President’s kid.
Bill, I totally agree. Here’s my review of a Truman mystery: http://willmanley.com/2010/12/03/will-unwound-294-wills-mystery-project-murder-at-the-national-cathedral-by-margaret-truman/
“bing” or “google” [Margaret Truman ghost writer] and decide for yourself that issue of authorship.
The references in the wikipedia article on Margaret Truman Daniel also include note that William Harrington had some involvement with the Elliott Roosevelt mysteries. (How about that for a recursive digression?)
Boris may I please have some green tea? Thanks.
And where are those salted cashews? Oh, I see them, they’re at the end of the bar.
Hmm, message received — skip the Elliott Roosevelt books!
Perhaps I’ll try one of Margaret Truman’s mysteries instead, some day of course, spare time is rather a short commodity at the moment.
Linda, how are the info science classes coming? Do they have any practical value in your actual libary work?
Thanks for asking! The degree is going; that is about all I can say for it – I’ll be completely finished in March 2012 – which frankly I am looking forward too. I has been a long five years of going to school to obtain first a Bachelors Degree and now an MLIS (What can I say – I should have gone to college at 20 but I was a stubborn 20 year old and didn’t want to!)
And I agree with what I’ve heard many other Unwinders say – the great majority of things we are studying in the MLIS classes really don’t relate to what it is like to work in a public library today – so as far as the classes relating to the work I am doing – not so much so as the current expression goes.
Although I suppose that the reason that the classes so far haven’t well reflected what it is actually like to work in a library, at least a public library, is because the educational field, like the library field itself, is in flux due to quickly evolving technology. But still it seems to me they should add classes on how to assist patrons in general and on how to assist patrons in using the technology (for example a class on how to create documents, resumes etc in Microsoft Word and perhaps Google docs or OpenOffice) because the bulk of the question we receive at my library – are those types of question – and not how to, for example, use LexisNexis or DIALOG (neither one of which my library would be likely to purchase – there too specialized and/or too expensive) to search for information or how to create a histogram.
I’m guessing that perhaps eventually library degrees will become more specialized. It seems to me right now, at least in looking at the material for the MLIS I’m working on, that MLIS coursework features rather all-over-the-map general type of mostly theoretical informational studies and perhaps as libraries, public and other-wise, become more specialized (I think that is what is going to happen) they’ll change the degree so that the course work better reflects the specialty of genre libraries (for lack of a better term) – either that or they’ll simply change the high end educational requirements for working in a public library…
Linda, when I think of how much time was lost in studying things like DIALOG, etc, and how much good would have been a class on how to teach the public information (I don’t mean the bibliographic interview, I mean the answer to the bibliographic interview), I want to scream. Heck, until you mentioned it, I had forgotten DIALOG completely. I am quite certain I haven’t even thought about it since library school! Things like how to learn my way around a database the way I was taught how to learn my way around a ref book, would have been much more useful. Say, Will, how about a rant Wed where we toss in suggestions of what a library school SHOULD be teaching to be relevant to the real world? I think there are too many people who will insist on keeping the MLS to talk sensibly about doing away with the degree, so lets have a dialog (small d) about what would make the durn thing more useful!
We’re on the same page!
And I agree we should have a rant Wednesday on the subject of what library school classes should be like – a big I’ll second that!
Excuse the typos again. Hopefully I’ll be less tired after I finish my degree and will catch more typos pre-post!
Odd. I don’t remember one with Madame Kai-Shek. Maybe I haven’t read that one. I’ll admit I like his books. I didn’t think Eleanor came across as a caricature. Maybe FDR a bit since his main line is something like Eleanor, keep in mind that the administration is going to be embarrassed if it comes out that you are sleuthing. Hmm. I’ll have to try to find the map room one. They definitely do vary in quality, I’ll agree with that. I like the history in the series. I did read this same Margaret Truman one (murder in the nat’l cathedral) but what I like about the Roosevelt ones doesn’t apply since she isn’t writing historical mysteries. I thought it was nice, not excellent. I guess I was bothered by a couple of the red herring characters. Wife abusers are not my cup of tea. I also found the climax rather overwrought with too many of the suspicious characters all in the same somewhat obscure room in the cathedral. However, I checked the author blurb and was impressed that they didn’t see a need to mention who her father was. Maybe by this book they didn’t see any reason to mention him since she has become successful in her own right.
I didn’t know Elliot was a one star general. Was that deserved or because of Pop? I also didn’t know that there was debate over whether they were ghostwritten. I love finding out new things! Too many of the details seem to be things that a ghostwriter wouldn’t know, that would have to come from a family member. I’d tend to agree with you on the ghost writen issue, even if for different reasons. I would say he certainly admired his mother, but that he had mixed feelings about his father’s extramarital relationship. I’ve already corrected a ton of typos and strongly suspect I missed a bunch. Will, can Boris drive me home with the rest of this toddy? Thanks!
Will, may I respectfully ask that you consider trying another Roosevelt one when the year is over? This one (murder in the map room) came out in 1998. Elliot died in 1990 according to the info in our bib record. I suspect this one was indeed ghostwritten and they must have gotten a cut rate one from your comments! I’m not going to bother reading this one after all!
I remember that I enjoyed the first one, Murder and the First Lady, enough to read some of the others in the series. The one I read that was published after his death was, well, not good.
Three cheers for Marian Robinson! Three cheers to the Obamas for keeping their kids out of the spotlight (even when they’re home in Chicago)!! Three cheers to Will for helping mystery readers avoid the really bad ones!!!
Ditto! Three more cheers and chai for everyone on this, at least in the northeast, damp and rainy Saturday.
You should have tried, A First Class Murder, which takes place aboard a transatlantic crossing aboard the Normandie in 1938 and features Mr. & Mrs. Charles Lindbergh, Jack Benny, Josephine Baker, and assistance to Mrs. Roosevelt by a young JFK, was delightful.