Every few years there appears a new biography of certain presidents, promising a new perspective or a fresh approach to their lives. FDR is a favorite topic for such books.
I have read numerous books about FDR and Eleanor over the years. After finishing Becoming FDR, I agree it’s “fresh” only in that it’s the latest published biography. It’s a rehashing of his life, with particular focus on how having polio, Changed his life.
The author purports it made FDR more compassionate and likable, am assertion that other authors have also posited.
If you’re unfamiliar with the life of FDR, this book might be a good place to begin, but it offers nothing new in the canon of books about him.

This isn't so much a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as it is a prelude to his presidency. Most of the focus is on his battle with polio and how he used this challenge to shape himself into the man we look back upon today.

I knew a fair amount about FDR going into this book, but I'd never known about his life before his illness to such a great extent as illustrated here. Though to begin with the pacing is strange, going back and forth between different eras of both his and Eleanor's lives, towards the middle it finds steady footing, telling the story in a more linear timeline. Becoming FDR is an up close and personal account of life in the Roosevelt home through infidelity, illness, and politics.

There are also some mentions of those involved with the Roosevelts, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Howe, friends of Eleanor's (among others), as well as quotes from Franklin and Eleanor's children. These interactions paint a broader picture of FDR through his social circle and family.

Informative and a relatively quick read, this book is a great accent to history book collections.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing a free digital ARC to read and review.

Becoming FDR by Jonathan Darman was a well researched novel on the life and characterization of FDR from birth through his presidency. The book doesn't necessarily break any new ground, but I still enjoyed the read and found the book to flow well.

Becoming FDR The Personal Crisis That Made a President by Jonathan Darman is an insightful read that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the life and legacy of the president. FDR became one of our greatest presidents, shining hope amid our worst days. Despite his personal flaws and disability, he led the nation through a banking crisis, a Depression, and war.

“When the country is beset by conflict, how does a President unite the nation to do big things? [ . . . ] When fear and suffering are all around us, how does a true leader inspire hope?”
What prescient questions to lead in the angle for a biography of one of American history’s most thoroughly biographied figures, for it would be fair to wonder what more there is for an author in the present day to glean from the life story of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President” by Jonathan Darman certainly met that concern and thoroughly exceeded my expectations. Rarely does a biography do such a deep dive into not just the things that its subject has said or done, nor even just why, but the why behind the why - the formative moments, the triumphs and trials that shaped their mindset from the very start and throughout their lives.
There are countless books that will tell you the basic, unemotional facts of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s life: his privileged upbringing, his bout with polio and subsequent paralysis, his Presidency during the Great Depression and WWII, his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt. What author Darman excels at is taking us beyond these facts to get to know the man behind him. We learn not just about Roosevelt’s charmed early years, but about the ways that those experiences taught him to relate to and interact with the world around him. Just the same as most of us, there are things that he must then go on to learn as well as unlearn from this start.
It is so much more interesting to learn about his political career and ambitions when one is put into his mindset rather than passively onlooking. We dive into Roosevelt’s deepest character at every stage of his life, through successes and failures and sickness and rebounding, watching him change and grow as we all do, learning as he learns from his experiences, truly humanizing him.
While it is easy to objectively know about Roosevelt, Darman has made me feel through his book as if I truly *know* FDR. I came away from this book with a much greater appreciation for the man, his Presidency, and the world he lived in that both shapes him and was in turn permanently shaped by him.
I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical biographies, American history, or Great Depression/WWII-era social history.

I've read a lot of biographies of Franklin (and Eleanor) Roosevelt since becoming interested in them in elementary school. Darman's book is different in that it's a lot more about Roosevelt's character than anything else. (In that sense, it reminded me of the Jefferson book, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs). Darman focuses on FDR's experience with polio and how that changed him as a person; he also delves into FDR's childhood and how his upbringing and traits drilled into him intertwined with the polio experience to make him into the man who would become President.

Interestingly, though the focus of the book is FDR, I feel like I got to know the people around him a bit better--Darman discusses Eleanor a lot, but also FDR's friend and adviser Louis Howe, and we get moving glimpses into the Roosevelt children as well. Franklin is analyzed quite a bit, but remains elusive--which seems fairly accurate to how he came across to people he interacted with, and even close friends.

There are a lot of stories and anecdotes in the book that I hadn't read before; Darman ends the story at FDR's inauguration, but learned a LOT about the transition from Hoover. Ditto the Democratic convention that ultimately nominated FDR. There's a lot of great information here, told in an engaging manner.

I did knock the book down a star because the organization toward the beginning of the book is confusing; there's quite a bit of jumping around in time between Franklin getting polio, but now it's him running for Vice President, then back to the summer he got polio. The book ultimately settles into a conventional, chronological telling, and I know Darman wants to use the polio as the anchor for the book, but it's a bit confusing.

Ultimately, I highly recommend for anyone interested in FDR. I learned a lot, the book moved quickly, and it was written well.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the copy of the book for review.

I’ve read more than 60 books on the Roosevelt family, some of them good, some of them great, some of them hyper-focused on a short period of time, some of them sweeping sagas covering their entire lives. I’ve watched Ken Burns The Roosevelts 7-part series about 75 times in the past 8 years. But I’ve never read a book that focused on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s battle with polio and how that shaped him as a man who could be president

Darman writes a compelling book, even though I’m very familiar with the subject and many of the stories told I was already familiar with. FDR spent most of his life as a privileged, charming, elitist lightweight whose only suffering was the loss of his father when he was 20. His mother pampered him babied him, bathing him until he was 9 years old. Sara Delano Roosevelt was a hovering mother who thought her child could do no wrong; her world revolved around Franklin. Having such devoted attention to oneself made Franklin very self-assured, if a bit shallow.

Getting to know his fifth cousin, Eleanor, changed Franklin Roosevelt. She was a woman of substance despite her seemingly privileged upbringing. Having a shallow mother prone to headaches and an alcoholic father meant that Eleanor did not have the same safe, sheltered early life. Her parents and one of her two brothers died when she was 9 and 10, leaving her orphaned. Raised by her maternal grandmother, she lived with uncles who liked to drink too much and shoot at people walking outside the house. Three padlocks were installed on her bedroom door to keep the uncles out. It was at finishing school when Eleanor was 15-18 that she learned of a life of service. She often volunteered to help out the less fortunate, and introduced Franklin to the poor living conditions of some of New York’s residents.

But that didn’t make Franklin any less carefree, and his privilege led to careless acts. He was ambitious and hoped to follow his distant cousin, and Eleanor’s uncle, Theodore, to the White House. But he had an affair with Eleanor’s former social secretary, Lucy Mercer, and was rarely around for his five surviving children (one child died at aged 7 months.) Eleanor said she’d give him a divorce, but his mother chimed in and said if he got a divorce, she’d cut him off financially. So they remained married, a political partnership with affection, but no longer love.

Franklin was nominated for Vice-President on the Democratic ticket for President in 1920 with James Cox, but lost in a big way. However, he knew that the exposure he got from the race, and the name recognition, as well as the choices he made in the future could point him toward the presidency.

It was the summer of 1921 when Franklin was stricken with infantile paralysis, polio, and his life forever changed. Unlike many who had gotten the disease, Franklin was never to regain his ability to walk. But he and his team of conspirators weaved a web of deception to the American public, making it seem he was on the mend. Through the next 11 years, Franklin learned to “walk” with leg braces, a cane, and firmly clutching the arm of a helper, usually his son James. No one ever saw him in a wheelchair.

The trials and tribulations of Franklin’s “wilderness years” are explored in detail. It was through his suffering that he finally got some empathy for his fellow man and made him the man who could be president. Just like his cousin Theodore’s trip to the Badlands following the death of his wife and mother made him the man who was one of the most popular and effective Presidents of all time, the fight to regain his ability to walk and talking to other polio patients made Franklin President material.

This was a really good read, making familiar material fresh, and revealing some stories that I had never heard before about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. And to think, the general public never knew he was a cripple. It’s sad to say that I don’t think the American public would elect a person with a disability today, just like they wouldn’t back in the 1930’s and 40’s. Considering the many attacks by Republicans about Franklin’s mental state (they claimed that the polio virus had damaged his brain as well as his body), I’m fairly surprised that the accusations didn’t stick, as they would in this day and age. And what we ended up with was the third best president of all time (behind Lincoln and Washington.)

Becoming FDR is filled with interesting details about the life of the former President. It is a very inspiring book. I highly recommend this book.

I’ve read several biographies of President Franklin Roosevelt over the years. I think the last was 3 or 4 years ago. I’m not sure why I thought it a good idea to read another but I’m glad I did.


The reason may be as simple as that I admired him as a president and how he dealt with both the great depression and World War 2.

I thank Netgalley for the chance to read Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President by Jonathan Darman before publication.

I found this book very interesting since it was not a typical biography. It had many of the same facts that I’ve read before but the unique aspect of this book was the concentration on his polio and the resulting struggles. This changed him and enabled him to become President and successfully deal the problems facing the United States.

The book is not out until Sept 6 but if you would like to learn more about this aspect of FDR’s life, you might want to add this to your to-be-read list.

This was an interesting look at how Polio helped turn FDR into the man that would become the only US President to be elected to four terms. This book also makes you wonder if he would have even become president. And with out his Polio and being Paralyzed Eleanor might not have become such an active first lady and woman she was.

Becoming FDR
By Jonathan Darman

I am not generally a non-fiction reader. Also, there is so much information about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in print that I was hesitant to read this book. But I am glad I did!

Mr. Darman is not doing the standard biography here. Instead, he takes the reader from Franklin and Eleanor's earliest childhoods in order for the reader to understand what made each of them the people they became in adulthood. The author's emphasis here is on what exactly transformed the handsome, charming, but shallow Franklin Delano Roosevelt into the strong empathetic leader who managed to save the country from the devastation of the Depression and guide it through its entrance into World War II.

Through the personal suffering of infantile paralysis, the long slow recuperation, and the recognition and acceptance of his enforced disability, Franklin learned that "planning, patience and timing" would become the keys to his successful return to politics and eventually the presidency.

For me, the most fascinating thing about this book was its recognition that both Eleanor and Franklin were not heroes; instead they were flawed – as we all are – and yet still managed to do extraordinary good.

"Becoming FDR" is one of the most interesting books I have read this year. It is the story of a politician whose goal is to be President of the United States, just like his distant cousin Teddy Roosevelt. They are two different men, from two different parties and highly different backgrounds. FDR was raised as a child of wealth. He was the only child and lived a pretty solitary existence. He was brilliant but had little interaction with other kids, and was exposed to little of the outside world. In his early twenties, he encountered another distant cousin, one from an equally wealthy background but who had been raised as an orphan. She would be the woman he shared a legal bond with, an open marriage even by today's standards. Eleanor Roosevelt was a force of her own and after Franklin publicly humiliated her with an adulterous affair they stayed married but went their separate ways. A marriage and a union that would not have withstood the media laser focus on today's politicians.
In his younger years, Franklin Roosevelt was a pleasure seeker. He spent his days playing golf and was often seemingly oblivious to life outside the wealth and comfort of his inner circle. Maturity seemed elusive until his body became wracked with the results of what was then called infantile paralysis. Because of his wealth and background and the devotion of his friends to his recovery he had every opportunity for therapy. Even then Roosevelt wanted it his way and was at times his own worst enemy of the recovery he so badly wanted. He would remain paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.
It did change his attitude and perhaps his empathy. Smart, charming, and ruthless he found himself the candidate of the Democrat party in a time when his country needed a positive voice and innovative programs to pull them out of the country's most difficult times. He was elected to the office of the Presidency an unparalleled four times. He became an unlikely spokesman for the poor and a beacon of hope for the world. It was an eye-opening, enlightening book about politics, and how the personal lives, personalities of politicians, and the media image of the president of the United States has changed over the years. Roosevelt did good things when judged thru just the light of policy and not personality or morals. Presidents today do not have that advantage. Read "Becoming FDR" for a glimpse into the life of one of our country's most revered presidents and our country's evolution and history since his reign.

Becoming FDR, a man that had the task of brining the US out of the Great Depression with his New Deal? Doesn't seem that easy. How did he become the man that would eventually become known to the whole world as FDR. The man that would lead the US into World War II and lead us out of the Great Depression. This book really sheds light on that topic.

Polio was at the heart of FDR’s greatness. Before his illness, he had been attractive and charming, but shallow and lacking in substance. His speeches had been pleasing, but forgettable. Polio made him an intuitive and compassionate man, which made him a better politician. The hard years of struggle enabled him to the America through the crises of the Great Depression and World War II.
I learned a lot about Franklin and Eleanor. Their marriage may have started with genuine love, but that quickly changed. His emotional distance and refusal to talk about unpleasant things are mentioned, as well as his affair with Lucy Mercer, but not why their intimacy ended after the birth of their last child. She bloomed during the 1920s while he recuperated and she busied herself with political groups, keeping the Roosevelt name before the public.
While polio enabled FDR to connect with people, he remained human. The book’s end left me with the final thought that “Franklin Roosevelt was not a man you could trust. Harry Truman described him as, “He lies.” Well worth your time.

It is one of the great stories in presidential history. I have read many books on Franklin D. Roosevelt, including another one about how polio shaped him as a man and a leader. Each time I am amazed how a priviledged, spoiled, intellectual lightweight who cheated on his wife suffered paralysis of his entire lower body and reinvented himself. He could have been a comfy invalid surrounded by his postage stamp collection, doted on by his imperious mother. Instead, he determined to look at the truth and work hard to reclaim his mobility. He believed he could do it. At Warm Springs, he helped other polio victims, who lovingly called him Doc. And when opportunity came to realize his dream, he put on that jaunty smile and took the world by storm. He proved that he was not on death’s door, not too frail to campaign across the country. And he proved that he understood that all Americans wanted was a fair deal, hope, a job.

FDR became one of our greatest presidents, shining hope in the midst of our worst days. In spite of his personal flaws, in spite of his disability, he led the nation through a banking crisis, a Depression, and war.

Becoming FDR focuses on leadership skills gained through FDR’s experience with polio, but it is also a marvelous brief biography of the man’s entire life. It is filled with the memorable people in his life: the wife he hurt who turned herself into a strong leader in her own right; Louis Howe who gave his life to shape FDR’s career, unable to let go even from a hospital bed; Al Smith, political ally turned foe. And all the children and adults who swarmed to Warm Spring, inspired by his example.

Even knowing the story, I was riveted and gained new insights.

It is a story every American should know; an example that every person should recall when facing seeming catastrophe. Look adversity in the eye and know it for what it is, believe you will prevail, and work to achieve your goal.

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

This is an excellent biography of the early life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt up to the election results of 1932. It is well written and researched and reads more like a novel than a biography. The author clearly lays out how FDR’s challenges in adapting to infantile paralysis molded him into the individual who was elected president with the assistance of Louis Howe and Eleanor Roosevelt. This is a must read for those interested in the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and my nonfiction book review blog.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a natural politician. He was born in 1882 into a wealthy and influential family and he was nice-looking and a charmer. And still, with all of this going for him, he didn’t have an easy time. He wasn’t naturally empathetic and strategic thinking was not his strong suit. It would take a long time and a serious illness to instill those qualities in him.

This biography tells us the story of the events that shaped his character and his political successes. In 1921 he contracted polio. He was 39 at the time and he was paralyzed from the waist down. He spent a lot of time trying to face this new reality and a lot of time trying everything to get well.

In 1928 he was the Democrat’s choice for Governor of New York. He had changed considerably. He was compassionate and listened to his constituents. He had found hope. And he used that to motivate the rest of us.

We also see how his wife evolved and became his most ardent supporter and voice.

This was a very good look at the life of a president. My own father had polio and he would always tell us that he got well because of this president. He kept hope alive.

Well-researched and a real joy to read.

NetGalley/September 6th, 2022 by Random House

Many books have been written about FDR and more have yet to be written, however, this wonderful read is like no other. Jonathan Durham focuses his interest on the man FDR became after his diagnosis of polio at the age of thirty nine. This is a book of struggles, challenges and the building of a man’s character as he navigates through them. Roosevelt fought for personal strength, he fought to walk, he fought against his physical decline and with each battle he fought for others; fellow polio victims, the less fortunate and the forgotten. His growing compassion and understanding shaped him into someone identifiable, someone motivational. He possessed steel will and grit. His determination was fueled by the encouragement of his wife Eleanor and his friend and political strategist Louis Howe and he learned the strength of the word hope as opposed to hopelessness.
This book is a triumph and one that should be essential reading.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Random House and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.

There are many fine books about FDR, including those by James MacGregor Burns and Doris Kearns Goodwin. I won’t claim to have read them all but I have read many. Becoming FDR deserves a special place among them.

This is a story of the transformation of a shallow, insubstantial young politician of no great talent into one of our greatest Presidents. While most biographies include the story of FDR’s illness, this book makes it the focus of the entire book. The temptation of any Roosevelt biographer is to portray polio as an obstacle he overcame. The thesis of this book is that polio was the vehicle by which he became great.

Darman makes a convincing case that prior to contracting polio, FDR was regarded by most who came in contact with him as an insubstantial lightweight. He spent his days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Wilson socializing, going to lunch, parties and playing golf. His interest in any one subject was almost always superficial and he did not carefully attend to his duties. One stunning example of this was his supervision of a morals investigation at the Naval Base at Newport Rhode Island. The investigators, under Roosevelt’s distracted eyes, sought to entrap sailors who were engaging in homosexual activity by ordering other sailors to engage in the same activities they were investigating.

Roosevelt subsequently obtains the Vice Presidential nomination in the election of 1920. He wore himself out as a candidate and in subsequent business activities and by late July was a set-up to contract Polio at a Boy Scout camp he was visiting. The actual illness became manifest while he was vacationing on Campobello Island off the coast of Maine. Abbreviated versions of this story are told in most biographies and in the play and movie Sunrise at Campobello. The full story, played out in the book is harrowing. Weeks of bad medical advice and physical decline pass before he, now paraplegic or even quadriplegic, gets off the island. It is what happens afterward to both FDR and Eleanor that makes up the core of the book. Roosevelt, resolved to focus on regaining his ability to walk again, visits expert after expert, and tries therapy after therapy. His political life, it seems, has passed him by.

His ordeals become public although they are played as if they are triumphs. He begins to receive correspondence from fellow polio sufferers asking for advice. He replies to them and becomes involved in their lives and struggles. By nature closed and deceptive, he is honest with them. For the first time, his peers are from different social strata, different levels of income and different levels of education. They have all been in some degree forgotten by society. In his search for health he stumbles across a run down spa at Warm Springs Georgia. For the first time he feels he is genuinely helped and wants to help his fellow sufferers as well. Using a substantial part of his money he buys the place and sets about the business of carefully studying the problems of others and organizing methods by which their suffering will be relieved. The water itself has a special quality that genuinely does help many. However, the most helpful part of a stay at Warm Springs is owner’s optimism about recovery and his attitude that the patients can once again become part of society.

Eleanor changes as well. She emerges from the role of political wife to be one of the most powerful people in Democratic politics, a teacher and was welcomed into a group of independent, intellectually gifted women. She came to dread the loss of all this as FDR re-emerged from his convalescence.

It is no secret that his friend and political strategist Louis Howe has a plan for FDR to put him back in the mainstream of politics but events overtook his plan. Howe had envisioned more years of waiting and watching. Al Smith, New York’s powerful governor, was in the running to be the Democratic candidate for President. He wanted however to reserve New York as his own and was convinced that to have who he thought was the shallow intellectual lightweight FDR as his replacement would allow him to move the levers of power. Against the wishes of his wife and the pleas of Howe, Roosevelt accepted the challenge. He was elected and began what in many ways was a dress rehearsal for how he was to run his presidency- using Eleanor and others to scrutinize the details of how things ran within the state’s institutions, especially those who were charged with the care of the vulnerable.

Most movies, books and documentaries make it seem like FDR’s road to the Presidency was a smooth one. Darman makes us realize how iffy the proposition was and how close the Democrats came to having an unknown compromise candidate. William Randolph Hearst controlled both the Texas and California delegations. He teamed with Al Smith and McAdoo, another former candidate to block Roosevelt from getting the nomination. It was only through the intervention of Joseph P Kennedy that the California and Texas votes swung to Roosevelt assuring him the nomination and the Presidency. By becoming President however, at least in his own mind, he gave up all chances of walking again.

Becoming FDR is a well written book which deserves a place on the bookshelf of everyone interested in the Roosevelt years. To look at his struggle with Polio is to understand much of what later came about in the course of his presidency. My thanks to the Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in return for this honest review.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a man born into wealth, with a strong family name and ambition to go as high as he would want to. The problem that FDR had was the same problem 99% of our current politicians have, he could not relate to the average person. We have millionaires in Congress now who own several homes, yachts and have never gone to the grocery store or filled their car with gas.
When FDR was young and moved in political circles he knew he wanted to help people but he really had no idea what that really meant. So, he won some elections and lost some but never really lived up to his goal.
Then he was struck with polio. At that time we did not have vaccines to protect us from polio and if someone contracted it more than likely they would end up paralyzed. So it was with Franklin. After he got the disease he was on either his back or barely walking with braces. In those first few years he really believed that he would get better, that he would be able to walk again. Everything else up to that point had always turned out fine so he had no reason to believe that this would be any different. But it was different and that difference changed who he was and how he viewed other people who had hardships. He was finally able to do something that politicians then and now we’re unable to do and that is to relate to the common man. Their hardships, their frustrations and their feeling of not being valued.
Today we hear millionaires tell us that we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, to get off our butts and make something of ourselves and that if we are poor it is our own fault. In the late 20’s and through the 30’s Americans could not pull themselves up by their bootstraps because most of them could not afford boots. Millions of Americans did not have jobs, food lines were forming and the government was afraid of being called Socialist so they refused to help in anyway. Banks were closing, the stock market had drastically dropped and people had no where to turn. No health insurance, no insurance on their bank deposits, nothing that anyone could fall back on.
This was a job for someone that could understand the plight of the people. That person was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He knew what it felt like to be powerless, to not be able to change his situation no matter how hard he tried.
FDR was two different people. One before polio and one after contracting the disease. The one after was someone humbled and very aware of pain and suffering.
“Becoming FDR” by Jonathan Darman shows us these two men. The author breaks it down by years leading up to the point when he gets the disease and then who he becomes after. The book also provides the reader with context surrounding those years so we have a better understanding of both FDR and those around him. There are a lot of good books on FDR and most if not all will cover this part of his history but this book exclusively deals with him and the transformation he makes due to contracting polio.
If you are interested in FDR, the 20’s through the 30’s, how politics operated during that time or how one man can turn his misfortune into saving a nation then this is a great book to pick up.