The Franklin Scare: A Novel about the True Life and War-Time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Edgar Hoover, and a Sailor Named Oliver Beebe [Paperback]

Jerome Charyn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 13, 2000

It is May, 1944. An ordinary sailor named Oliver Beebe, a handsome man with a head full of eyebrows, arrives at the White House to cut the Presidents hair, and quickly, mysteriously, becomes a live-in, full-time companion and confidant to the Chief Executive. An odd nimbus surrounds the young man. The president has installed him in the attic of the White House, he comes and goes from FDRs bedroom without knocking, he is the only man who seems to be able to bridge the warring camps surrounding Eleanor and FDR.Reporters and newsmen of the nation interview and probe, but they can find no clue to the secret of Oliver Beebe. The Secret Service digs into his past, but they can only come up with questions: What is Beebes strange relationship with his sister? Why does he go to meetings of the Fascist organization called The Liberty Club? What is the basis of his remarkable friendship with J. Edgar Hoover? As the security forces watch in frustration, the President, increasingly dependent on young Oliver, and caught up first in his election battle against Tom Dewey and then with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta, remains oblivious to his own and the nations jeopardy. What happens then, and how, is more than historic.

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About the Author

Jerome Charyn was born in the Bronx in 1937. He currently teaches film history and the aesthetics of crime fiction at the American University of Paris. His fiction and nonfiction have been translated into thirteen languages. His more recent book is a memoir, The Black Swan.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (December 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595159206
• ISBN-13: 978-0595159208
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,832,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in the mean streets of the Bronx and have remained a city wolf, dividing my time between New York City and Paris.

I grew up reading comic books and watching movies; you can see their influences in my books. I started writing novels at the age of eleven; Amazon carries 40+ titles, fiction and non-fiction.

For the past fourteen years I taught film at the American University of Paris.

I love Emily Dickinson's poems and William Faulkner's novels. I also love Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," which has the feel of a novel. (I wrote a book about Tarantino, "Raised by Wolves," after the film's release.)

My novel "The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson," published in 2010, inspired a community of more than 3500 Emily Dickinson Facebook fans dedicated to the poet's place in the 21st century.

"The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson" is now available in paperback in a reading group edition with online reading guide.

My most recent book, "Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil," was released on March 8, 2011, part of the Yale University Press series on American Icons. More than 1000 fans are already registered on its Facebook page.

I invite you to join me on Facebook for "The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson" or "Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil." Or visit my website: www.jeromecharyn.com