FRANKLIN AND WINSTON An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Roosevelt and Churchill became friends through their mutual defense of the free world during WWII. The detailed story of how that friendship unfolded and deepened reveals their personalities and the social processes they used in making their mega-decisions. This salutary biography challenges the narrator’s skills with dual principals, but Grover Gardner’s comfortable pace smooths the jumps between the two lives and two governments into a consistent narrative. Gardner doesn’t do characterizations, thereby missing some opportunities for color in the abundant quotations by men who loved to talk. Experienced biography aficionados looking for a low-cal intellectual dessert should taste this plethora of minutiae on two twentieth-century titans. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 04]