Eleanor Herman (Sex with the Queen and Sex with Kings) continues her unflinching nonfiction series on the insatiable libidos of powerful people by turning the spotlight on American presidents in Sex with Presidents.
Titillating whispers and outright scandal have long surrounded Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, but all the juicy details are expounded upon, and six more presidents get called out for their ribald behavior. Grover Cleveland, the only one to serve two nonconsecutive terms, was the first of three presidents accused of rape. President Woodrow Wilson maintained a public affair with a married socialite while his wife remained at home battling kidney failure. Warren G. Harding checked himself into a sanitarium (twice!), attempting to cure sex addiction with Kellogg's Cornflakes. Eleonor Roosevelt detested sex with her philandering husband, Franklin, but that didn't deter her from leading a sexually fluid lifestyle. Ten presidents, three first ladies and two well-known figures who aspired to be leader of the free world are dragged through mud in this must-keep-reading book.
Eleanor Herman's poison-pen dissection of lauded historical figures is startling in scope and revelation. Herman readily admits many of her claims rely on hearsay and speculation, due to the destruction of thousands of letters and diaries, but she cites 53 different authors' works to back up the existence of such documents and the veracity of her claims. One thing the author does make clear with her engrossing documentation: as long as politicians keep the economy running smoothly, Americans don't really care what happens behind closed doors. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer