Symbolism

In telling Eleanor's story, Cook follows the chronological order of events, but like a good novelist she also turns one incident into a central motif of the biography, carrying both structural and symbolic significance.

In 1919, when suffering from the shock of her husband's infidelity, Eleanor made numerous visits to Rock Creek Cemetery, outside the center of Washington, D.C. There she would contemplate in solitude the statue of Marion Hooper Adams (known as Clover). Clover was a woman who in 1885 committed suicide when she learned that her husband, Henry Adams, was having an affair with another woman. Adams commissioned the statue in his wife's memory. The statue had no name to identify it but was often known simply as Grief.

Eleanor felt a kinship with Clover. Both women were betrayed by men; both sought to expand the roles that women could play in life. Clover was a highly...