I love reading books that are well researched and contain information that I wouldn't have known unless I read it! This is one of those books. The author's extensive research on how two unlikely allies created the New Deal and the Modern Democratic Party. By all accounts, FDR and Al Smith were completely different, but they managed to change history. Fascinating and informative read!

Al Smith grew up in the neighborhoods of New York working long hours among the poor and immigrant populations. FDR was from one of the most prestigious families of New York calling President Teddy Roosevelt a cousin, access to the best education, etc. Nothing in these brief biographical sketches suggests that the two men would grow to have a warm, if sometimes strained friendship, but there it was.

The men were united because despite their backgrounds, they shared a common set of political ideas and beliefs of how things should be. This friendship was not easy because they also shared the ambition to be President of the United States. Wanting to be president strained the relationship and forced friends to take sides.

I fear that I have described a book for political nerds which is far from what Frank and Al is. It’s actually quite a moving portrait of the two men and their friendship because taking the two men as most Americans know them, they shouldn’t have been friends, but yet they were and it most assuredly should not have survived the achievement of one man’s ambition at the expense of the other, but while the friendship was strained it never ruptured.

A rare book on politics that left this reader feeling something deep within.

The author explores the relationship between these two men. At the time it was rare for a Protestant and a Catholic to be friends and support each other in public. he explores the ups and downs of this relationship and its impact on the Democratic Party. Excellent read.

When young, I thought that all men were like my father. So, when I was old enough to perceive that my father (1) was grumpy, and (2) worshipped Franklin Roosevelt, I thought that this was normal behavior for all adults. Even when I was older, and refined my observations so that I noticed my father (1) was grumpy in direct proportion to his proximity on household repair projects, and (2) worshipped Franklin Roosevelt exclusively among politicians, I assumed that this was more or less par for the course for middle-class white suburban men of an age which at the time seemed unimaginably ancient, but which is younger than I am now.

Al Smith, by comparison, existed in my young imagination as a comic creature who appeared in the dusty pages of collections of old cartoons from The New Yorker which lay untouched on my parents' bookshelves. Smith was portrayed as an ever-grinning figure with a bowler hat nudged to a jaunty angle, more like a cartoon character than a serious politician.

Whether you grew up in an FDR-worshipping home or not, it is likely that Smith is now a less familiar figure. That's a shame, because he was far more remarkable, as this book demonstrates. He was poor and Catholic at a time when these held you back in the same manner that being female and of color holds people back in our time. In spite of a limited formal education, he possessed the ability to master facts and engage in oratory in a manner far exceeding his contemporaries with superior credentials. And he had a way with words.

[A]ny man that conjures up for you a fancied grievance against your government or against the man at the head of it to help himself is breeding the seeds of an anarchy and a dissatisfaction more disastrous to the welfare of the community than any other teaching I can think of (Kindle location 1829).

Smith defended the defenseless in a way which has aged exceedingly well. On the other hand, a look at Smith's racist blockhead and religious hyprocrite opponents will show to those with eyes to see how certain segments of the political landscape today will appear to our children's children.

But like all wildly-successful men, both Smith and FDR were massive egos. Neither could stand being the second-most-important person in the room for long periods of time. It was a shame that they didn't get along better – they could've accomplished a lot more if they had worked together. But there is some consolation in the thought that the American left's inability to look past their differences to the larger goal is not a shortcoming confined to our generation.

This good book covers a lot of territory. It is written for the general reader and not burdened down with the necessity to defend a point of view, nor is it seemingly written to please a faculty tenure committee. It's an engaging narrative and reads quickly. That's what I look for in a history – it should crackle with the excitement of history but also leave me a little bit smarter than I was when I began.

A year of so before his death in the mid-2000s, my father mentioned to me that he had seen apparently serious grown adults on the television saying that FDR's presidency was actually a failure and his policies had made the Great Depression worse, not better. Did I know that such opinions were being taken seriously in the world. I admitted that I had heard such things myself with increasing frequency and opined that the rise of such revisionism was the result of the diminishing number of people who had experienced the situation first hand and could, with authority, set the record straight. My father, whose visage could by that time have passed for an illustration accompanying the dictionary definition of “crusty”, looked at me in all earnestness and asked “Don't they know that he saved the country?”

No, Dad, I guess they didn't, and they probably never will. However, if those of us who remain read a story that tells you the way it was, perhaps we can remember that the country was in a time in which it (and its people) really required saving, and a few flawed individuals popped up to make it happen. They didn't always get along, but they pulled together when it counted.

I received a free electronic advance review copy of this book via Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, an offspring of MacMillan Publishers.

Common goals bring people together; alliances are made between unlikely people. Friendships are forged, but sometimes the friends become alienated, their relationships shifting with the loss or gain of political power.

Reading biographies on President Franklin D. Roosevelt I learned about Al Smith, the New York City politician who failed to gain the presidential nomination because of his Catholic Faith. I knew that FDR's 1928 presidential nomination speech for Al Smith marked FDR's political comeback after polio. I was curious to learn more about Al and requested the galley for Frank & Al by Terry Golway.

Right away I fell under Al's spell. He had charisma and personality and a commitment to helping the 'little man' with a progressive agenda. He knew the challenges they faced first-hand., for Al had to leave school and work in the Fulton Fish Market after the death of his father. His mother took a factory job. Tammany Hall promoted his political rise to Albany. Realizing how unprepared he was, Al committed to studying until he had a command of the issues and laws. He became a popular and beloved New York State governor.

No one could have been more different from Al than FDR with his long family history of status and wealth. FDR was a Harvard man. He was also seen as a lightweight, but he supported Al all the way.

How these two men changed the Democratic party is the core of the book. The history of their friendship recalls Adams and Jefferson--allies turned foes who embrace reconciliation later in life.

I was actually thrilled while reading the narratives about the conventions! Al's Catholicism was a huge issue. The KKK came out in full force to wield its influence. The Democrats had to choose to condemn the KKK as an Anti-American terrorist group and risk splitting the party or water the platform down to condemning any secret society. The clan gathered in New Jersey to burn an effigy of Al Smith. Protestant preachers across Middle America turned Al into a Papal pawn and denounced his opposition to Prohibition.

Al was hugely popular in the East and among city folk but could not win rural WASP America. After Hoover's failure to address the Depression, FDR was successful in his presidential bid...and the rest is history. Al, though, did not take his losses well and was critical of FDR's policies.

The Democratic party was transfigured by Al's agenda which was continued by FDR on the national level; the president admitted he was following the agenda set by Al many years ago in New York State. The two men had some form of reconciliation and worked together but the warm friendship was never regained.

It always strikes me when I read history that human nature does not change. Al and Frank, or John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, politics power disrupts friendships. Xenophobia rears its ugly head again and again. Where once the Catholics were feared as puppets of the Pope, now we fear Muslims. Every history I read is relevant to the issues we face today.

Golway has written a wonderful book that brings these men and the times to life in a thrilling narrative history.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

From the turn of the century to world War II, American political life was dominated by Alfred E. Smith and Franklin Roosevelt. Their lives intertwined the conflict and cooperation in events that changed the Democratic Party, U.S. politics, and American social and economic news.
Terry Golway has plenty of material to work with and he does his material proud in his book, Frank and Al. Golway draws you into the lives of these giants. We see them as men trying to succeed but more importantly as men trying to do right, It would have been easy to fall into the chronology tray where an author lists accomplishment after accomplishment but leaves out the soul of the accomplishments. Suffering and pride, ego and anger are part of life, they are included in Frank and Al's story.
In 1928, New York Times journalist, Walter Lippman wrote that in the time of hardship, Americans would choose fear over hope. How lucky that we had Franklin Roosevelt and Al Smith "The happy warrior" to show us we could build anything, overcome anything and survive anything. How lucky that we have Terry Golway to remind us that this is the role that history can play in our lives, much to our betterment.
I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley. My reviews are unbiased. #netgalley #FrankandAl

A brilliant history of the alliance that made the made America what it was in the twentieth century. The alliance between the Catholic City fixer Al Smith and the patrician landed aristocrat that was FDR. How did it come about and why was it so important? Terry Golway answers all in a decisively riveting narrative that will leave you satisfied. This is very good readable history.

Some elements are missing such as the tie between the KKK and the prohibition movement. The KKK were the vigiliante group that went from a few thousand to several million during prohibition. By Smith and FDR breaking prohibition they were breaking the KKK. This is a connection Golway does not quite represent but there is lots of talk around it. This however is a minor criticism. Golway can not drag up the whole past but he can sure tell a story.

I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in twentieth century American history or anyone anywhere that enjoys a good fast paced historical read with lots of colourful detail.