Two of our last four First Ladies were regularly savaged in the press for their supposedly inordinate influence on national policies through their husbands. As this enjoyable and informative survey indicates, strong spousal influence over our recent presidents has been the rule rather than the exception. Marton is an author of three nonfiction works and a novel, and she is a former correspondent for ABC News and National Public Radio. Relying on private White House documents and interviews with sources employed in the White House, she illustrates how presidents from Wilson to the current Bush have usually accepted, even depended on, advice and counsel from their spouses. At times, the influence has been overwhelming; during the later stages of the Wilson administration, Edith Wilson made virtually all major policy decisions as her husband recovered from a stroke. Typically, however, the influence has been subtle and based on mutual respect and affection. As Marton asserts, we should be neither surprised nor unnecessarily disturbed by this entirely human tendency. --Jay Freeman

The saying that behind every powerful man is a powerful woman guides Marton's exploration of presidential marriages, from the Wilsons to George W. and Laura Bush. Sometimes Marton points out the obvious: most presidential couples have been middle-aged, and no one got divorced after leaving office. Even in the chapters on individual couples, Marton rehearses themes that will already be familiar to many readers: after Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, his wife Edith ran the country as a sort of deputy president (Marton doesn't bring to this story the kind of originality that Phyllis Lee Levin's does in Edith and Woodrow (Forecasts, Aug. 6) ; Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt labored under the shadow of FDR's affair with his secretary, Missy LeHand; Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage was an "unlimited partnership," in which Hillary bailed out her husband time and again. The analytical question that seems to most interest Marton is predictable how do presidential wives balance feminism and tradition? Her answer the balancing act is a tricky one is banal. Surprisingly, the best chapter in which Marton advances an argument that illuminates more than an individual couple is on the Fords. Here, Marton suggests that "the same qualities that made Gerald Ford a good husband" (compassion, the ability to compromise) also made him a mediocre president. Marton has delivered crisply written political gossip those who want buzz will flock to it; those looking for serious history will turn elsewhere. B&w photos. (Sept. 21) Forecast: Despite its light quality, or perhaps because of it, this will be talked about everywhere, aided by a 13-city author tour, appearances on 20/20, Charlie Rose and other national media. Its first printing of 100,000 should sell handsomely. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

With this thoughtful rumination, journalist Marton augments the proliferating literature on the position and person of the First Lady. Marton examines 11 of the 20th-century presidential couples (the Wilsons, the Franklin Roosevelts, the Trumans, the Kennedys, and the seven couples that followed), relying chiefly on interviews, oral histories, and secondary sources. Ultimately, the reader comes away with the sense that the First Lady has confronted the same problem faced by every other 20th-century American woman, albeit writ large: however she balances the demands of her family and her "job," she isn't seen as getting it quite right. The First Lady, however, gets ragged on not just by her in-laws or her neighbors but also by the national press. Much of the material Marton includes has appeared elsewhere, but her commentary is insightful. The portrayals of Woodrow Wilson as a passionate lover, Bess Truman as selfish, small-minded, and mean, and Pat Nixon as isolated and depressed, are vivid. Recommended for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/01.] Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.