A frank account of the tempestuous life of the American mother of Britain’s most important twentieth-century politician.
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The best course of action would be to look rich, marry well, bear sons and be careful in her friendships. The rewards would be social standing and some degree of financial and social independence, at least in widowhood. Jennie Jerome did not follow these rules but still succeeded notably in her small but very powerful world. She topped the marriage market by landing Lord Randolph Churchill, worked her ambitious American self into the top levels of shadow politics, assiduously nurtured her son, Winston to be a statesman, kept most of the family secrets while fully disclosing her own, and managed through two subsequent marriages and dozens of liaisons to maintain her status in the upper echelon. Biographer Sebba does much to make up for the gossip, spurious and otherwise, that has marred her subject's reputation and explains her in sympathetic terms as a very ambitious and very modern woman. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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