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American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill

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American Jennie in the US, and Jennie Churchill in the UK - the mother of Winston Churchill - the title says it all. Anne Sebba has created a character who had to triumph in two countries. The method is simplistic, almost from a 1950s children's comic. The goodie is Jennie nee Jerome, from an American, and therefore liberated background. The baddie is her husband, Lord Randolph Churchill, from an English, aristocratic background. His supposedly becoming infected with syphilis early on in the marriage increases his badness. It gets worse when his career as a Conservative politician develops and he spends long hours in the House of Commons. Beautiful, well-dressed, extravagant, piano-playing Jennie is justified in taking a lover and triumphs as the heroine.

Jennie is promoted as the engineer of Winston's success as a politician and world leader during the Second World War. Yet she died in 1921, when he was still in disgrace over the failed attempt to capture Gallipoli in 1915, which plan he had masterminded. It would be another 20 years before Winston, by then in his mid-60s, would become British Wartime Prime Minister. One would have thought that his wife, Clementine nee Hozier (Clemmie), who he married in 1908, would have warranted more credit by Anne Sebba for her role in his success.

And what of Winston's younger brother John (Jack) Churchill? Ignored by Winston in his writings, as though he didn't exist he died in 1947 in relative obscurity. Anne Sebba has written Jack out of her biography in a single line. He was the illegitimate son of 7th Viscount (`Star') Falmouth. In other words he wasn't really a Churchill so neither Jennie nor Winston could be expected to take any responsibility for him. Winston and Jack are as alike as two peas in a pod, both Churchillian, both grandsons of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. Jack's two other children were John (Johnny) a well-known artist, and Clarissa, Countess of Avon, wife of the former Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. Now in her 88th year, Clarissa has just written a very interesting book Memoir, published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Clarissa and her two siblings were in no doubt that their grandfather was Lord Randolph Churchill, even though Anne Sebba paints him as a mad syphilitic. What rot!

I have it on good authority that one of the major copyright owners of the Churchill papers is so disgusted with Mrs Sebba's book that they have withdrawn permission of copyright. From the point of view of an historian, a true biography of Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill, has still to be written. In fact, Elizabeth Kehoe's book, Fortunes Daughters, the story of the three Jerome sisters, Clara, Jennie, and Leonie, is a far better read having been more carefully researched. Also, while not perfect, look at Dark Lady, the biography of Jennie Churchill by Charles Higham, for a more balanced and historically accurate portrayal.

American Jennie by Anne Sebba is the story of the incredible life of Lady Randolph Churchill. American Jennie Jerome fell in love with Brit Randolph Churchill in a whirlwind courtship. After overcoming parental objections on both sides of the match, the couple wed and quickly produced son Winston. But the romance faded soon, and both engaged in affairs. They pulled together to get Randolph into the House of Commons, but for most of the rest of their lives, they lived apart. Sebba digs through newspaper accounts, family records, diaries, and letters to produce this well put together biography of an unusual woman. Jennie was well known for her beauty and her indiscretions in a time when women were still considered a husband's property. She produced a literary magazine, helped get both her husband and son seats in the House, traveled extensively, and cared for her husband at the end of his life. Randolph, who suffered from syphilis, was a difficult man, capricious even before the disease attacked his mind. Sebba tries to defend and protect Jennie where possible, but even in the best of lights, Jennie was an atrocious mother who ignored her children. In the end, the picture that emerges of Jennie is of a woman determined to live life on her own terms. She produced children, but that didn't make her a mother. She was married, but was a better wife to her lovers. She lived very much in the moment, always in debt and buying Worth gowns. Sebba does her best to make Jennie likeable, and to an extent, she succeeds. Jennie would be a wonderful addition to a dinner party, but not someone you could count on as a friend. A couple of complaints: there are not nearly enough photos of Jennie. For such a famous woman, I'm sure there are many more out there that would have shown her recognized beauty to better advantage. Also, Jennie and her sisters spoke French, so they peppered their letters to each other with French phrases. Sebba also throws several in her writing. I don't know French, so I often felt a bit left out. Sebba easily could have included translations in brackets, because the meaning was usually not easily gleaned from the rest of the passage.

When I say this is not a flattering portrait, it is only because, at the end of the day, I don't think Jennie Churchill was a particularly good person. She was a bad mother--even by the standards of the day; she was an unfaithful wife; she was a spendthrift; and she was, in my opinion, rather clueless as to the real world.

Any portrait of Jennie could not be flattering; she's famous for being infamous.

Now, beyond the topic of the "real" Jennie, my major criticism is that this book is not well written. It's just not an easy read. The thoughts seem scattered and not in depth, the deeper nuances of Jennie's character and motivations were not explored, and overall, the book does not flow.

I think the subject of this book is not to make Jennie look good. It's to shed insight on why she was the way she was. In that manner, I think by the somewhat disorganized storytelling, this book misses the mark.

If you're interested in social history, royal gossip and who attended which dances, this book is excellent (at least about the first 100 pages, I gave up) but if Edith Wharton isn't your style, I recommend that you find something else to read. I listened to the first four CDs while commuting to work and couldn't take anymore.

Great new book on a wonderful and timeless life. We own and have read the two volumn work by Martin on Jennie, but this is a fresh and well researched look at the times and people who shaped her son Winston's life. If this work interests the reader there is in Jennie's own hand her book, The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. While not in print, it can be found on the used books websites.

I had read the 3 volume Ralph Martin Book before this bio of Winston Churchill's mother. That one was better written but both would never have been written at all had Jennie not been the mother of a great man. She can be forgiven for having sought some romantic consolation being married to the alcoholic horror of Randolph Churchill.
But what I found most repehensible her was the total lack of any maternal feelings for her son when he was growing up. She ignored his pleas to visit him at boarding school & left him in a place at first that sounds like something out of a Charles Dickens nightmare. His nanny, Everest, was the only perosn who gave Winston the love that he craved. When Everest was dying, to Winston's credit as an adult, he came to her death bed & let her know how much he valued her love for him during his boyhood. Jennie totally ignored her existence once she was not employed anymore. These incidents tell the character of Jennie.
She only took an interest in the adult Winston because she could introduce him to important people socially & all his life Winston romanticized her as some "distant star" which she never was except in being distant. She was a social climber (that is why as a spoiled American heiress) married the dissolute Randolph...for his title & she got what she deserved.
Winston later told his son Randolph (also a pathetic arrogant alcoholic) that when having dinner with him one night..."You know, I have spoken with you more this one evening than my father spoke to me during my entire life".
Now you can imagine what even some attention from his mother must have meant!
Jennie was also a spendthrift with no social conscience & her so called business endeavors all led to bankruptcy.
I am sure she made a good dinner companion & could be quite entertaining had no depth of charcter.
The telling of her life is good for historical background of the times in the British upper classes & for Winston Churchil's life. Not much more.

A so-so book about a truly worthless woman. She would have been able to get out of debt today by becoming a reality star and having her own TV show. It kept me busy for a while.

This book is an intereting piece. Biographies are my favortie (autobiogragphies I tend to find are skewed by the authors opinions of themselves). There is so much history and interseting facts that I doubt most of America knows about Winston Churchill and his "colorful" mother. I was unaware that he had relatives who fought on both sides of the war at the same time... or that he was part American Indian... and no one I've told these things to knew either.
Very well done given the cast of characters are not available for interview!

Jennie Jerome Churchill has always been fascinating and this book goes into much more detail of her life than those I've read in the past. Definitely a keeper.

to me jennie churchill was a selfish ,pleasure seeking woman who only cared about herself.she couldn't wait to get nannies taking care her sons are puting them in abusive boarding schools.she as a wife was a marriage were she couldn't stay faithful or not keeping her husband in debit.to me why winston feeling of love for her i just don't get.his nanny was more a mother to him than jennie.