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'Sebba shows his mother was a brilliant and energetic person in her own right ... if you want to learn about the son, then learn about the mother'
(Northern Echo )Product Description
After a three-day romance Brooklyn-born Jennie Jerome married into the British aristocracy to become Lady Randolph Churchill. At a time when women were afforded few freedoms, she was a cornerstone of high society and a behind-the-scenes political dynamo.
However it was Jennie's love life that marked her out, causing scandal in its day and earning her the epithet 'more panther than woman'. She was sexually fearless at a time when women were supposed to be sexually vapid. Yet, in other ways, Jennie was deeply loyal to her husband. When he was dying of syphilis she took him on a round-the-world trip to conceal his violence and mania. He returned in a straitjacket with only weeks to live.
After Randolph's death her great project became her son, Winston, with whom she was entwined in an intense mutual dependency. Jennie died suddenly in 1921 after a dramatic fall downstairs, having tripped over her high heels. Although Winston was not to become the nation's leader for another two decades, he had already acquired from his mother an unshakeable faith in his destiny.
With unprecedented access to private family correspondence, newly discovered archival material and interviews with Jennie's two surviving granddaughters, Anne Sebba draws a vivid and frank portrait of her subject. She repositions Jennie as a woman who refused to be cowed by her era's customary repression of women. Neither a bad mother nor a sexually predatory wife, Jennie Churchill was creative and passionate, determined to live life to the full.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
History tends to give short schrift to the mothers of great men. If they're mentioned at all, they tend to be portrayed as self-sacrificing angels who give their all for the sake of their child. Not so Jennie Churchill, the American mother of one of our greatest of great men: Winston Churchill. Jennie, as the excellent photographs in the book show, was a great beauty - spirited, fearless, proud, intelligent and absolutely determined to live life on her own terms, traits which her reputedly Native American blood only served to strengthen. Born in New York into a family of great self-made wealth, Jennie moved with her mother to Paris where she became intimate with the glittering court of the Emporer Napoleon III. It was as if her parents were preparing her to claim her birthright and marry into the European aristocracy, as many American heiresses were doing, bringing new blood and pots of gold to to a tired an impoverished ruling class. Jennie met Lord Randolph Churchill in the Isle of Wight and after a whirlwind courtship of just three days was engaged to this younger son of the the great warrior dukedom of Marlborough. Why they became engaged, and how they managed to marry in the teeth of family opposition, misunderstandings and assorted mishaps remains a mystery. What is clear is that there was an overwhelming, overpowering sexual attraction between them which resulted in Winston Churchill, their first son, being conceived out of wedlock. (It is interesting to speculate what would have happened to the course of modern British history had Jennie Jerome and Lord Randolph Churchill not met, let alone married and produced Winston.) I came to this biography as an admirer of Winston Churchill: although Jennie has been dealt with in biogrpahies of Churchill, these portraits of Jennie have been just that - broad-stroke, rather clichéed images of her. In this remarkable biography, Anne Sebba has scultped a flesh and blood, warts and all, life of Jennie - a life remarkable for its gaities and its miseries, its joys and its sorrow. Jennie's marriage to Randolph was less than happy, complicated by the chilliness and hostility of the Churchill family and, more profoundly, by the slow decline and death from syphilis of Lord Randolph Churchill. Anne Sebba has uncovered remarkable new eveidence form notes made by Randolph's doctors and presented a scrupulously fair and impartial examination of the evidence for and against a diagnosis of syphilis. Jennie Jerome never lost her appetie for pleasure and for men. One of the great strengths of this biography is the way it manages to capture the spirit of Jennie and the sprit of the age in all its reckless extravagances and self-indulgences, in its manifold follies and appalling injustices. This book is that most elusive of creatures: a scholarly and serious biography which is also a thrilling and riveting read. Glorious!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
JENNIE CHURCHILL: Winston's American Mother by Anne Sebba.
This book did my insomnia no good, keeping me glued to the page long after I should have put the light out. The author has digested and organised an awesome amount of archival and other research material while maintaining a clear, compelling narrative line throughout.
This is the biography of a spirited, beautiful and intelligent American heiress (Jamesian associations come to mind) who left for Europe and married into the Engish aristocracy, first to Lord Randolph Churchill,
a relationship that failed and ended with his death.
A tireless social networker (some would say climber), her ambitions concentrated less on herself than on launching and furthering the career of her son Winston. Married three times, attracting countless lovers, spending profligately and falling into debt, she also pursued
intellectual interests, founding and editing a literary magazine. This in itself marked her out as exceptional among the women of her class at that time.
Sebba is good at the wrenching as well as triumphant moments in Jennie'e life, perhaps the most memorable being her account of a cruise voyage towards the end of Randolph's life as he lay in his cabin, physically and mentally wrecked, alternating between clarity and madness. Sebba makes one feel for them both in this portrait of a
remarkable woman.
H.R. (London, England)
This book did my insomnia no good, keeping me glued to the page long after I should have put the light out. The author has digested and organised an awesome amount of archival and other research material while maintaining a clear, compelling narrative line throughout.
This is the biography of a spirited, beautiful and intelligent American heiress (Jamesian associations come to mind) who left for Europe and married into the Engish aristocracy, first to Lord Randolph Churchill,
a relationship that failed and ended with his death.
A tireless social networker (some would say climber), her ambitions concentrated less on herself than on launching and furthering the career of her son Winston. Married three times, attracting countless lovers, spending profligately and falling into debt, she also pursued
intellectual interests, founding and editing a literary magazine. This in itself marked her out as exceptional among the women of her class at that time.
Sebba is good at the wrenching as well as triumphant moments in Jennie'e life, perhaps the most memorable being her account of a cruise voyage towards the end of Randolph's life as he lay in his cabin, physically and mentally wrecked, alternating between clarity and madness. Sebba makes one feel for them both in this portrait of a
remarkable woman.
H.R. (London, England)
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When I was a girl in the early seventies my mother told me I had to remain a virgin till my wedding day but that after I'd had my children an `extramarital affair was quite in order, if needs must, provided it was conducted with absolute discretion.' Even then this felt like maternal advice handed down the generations, but by the end of the decade it was hopelessly out of date. This heavenly biography of Jennie Churchill allowed me all the vicarious pleasure (and pain) of living a life which, with just a tweak of history, might have been mine.
Of course, I have neither the beauty nor radiant charm of Anne Sebba's heroine, but for the last three weeks I have been living through her (to the extent of now being utterly exhausted!) in the same way as I might reading a great novel. Jennie was reputed to have had two hundred lovers, yet her discretion was such that only a dozen or so can be verified. An aphorism of the day was cache ton jeu, and so good was she at 'hiding her game' that despite a three year period in which she regularly entertained the Prince of Wales while her husband was away - private lunches, afternoons and teas - there is nothing in the numerous notes they exchanged to suggest they were actually having an affair.
Nonetheless, her physicality, her love of being beautiful (though paradoxically, without vanity) her love and expectation of being desired, run through her life. Her second and third husbands were twenty years younger than she was, both famous for their good looks, but Jennie, first in her forties and then in her sixties, manages to `capture' them with her physical allure. She observes (but does not bemoan) the day she walked into a room and was no longer the most beautiful woman there.
But if this smacks of self-love, Jennie evokes sympathy and admiration a hundred times more than irritation. Her first husband, Randolph Churchill, was clearly bored by her soon after their marriage, but Jennie's love of him and yearning for that love to be reciprocated is painful. When Randolph's political life ends ignominiously and his health flounders (probably from syphilis he contracted as a student), she stands by him to the end.
But whereas Randolph never lives up to her expectations of him and in some important sense fails her, in her son, Winston, Jennie can finally flourish. She is so convinced of his star that as he sets out in life she pulls every string she can, introducing him to anyone and everyone whom she considers politically astute and can help him on his way. Even when Winston himself is thrown out of the cabinet during the First World War, and volunteers to go to the Front, she never seems anxious that he will die so convinced is she of his ultimate destiny. She feels instinctively that Winston cannot err, and that faith in him is transmuted, without doubt, into Winston's faith in himself. She never lived to see Winston become `the greatest Briton' but there is no doubt in this reader's mind that she planted the seed.
Of course, I have neither the beauty nor radiant charm of Anne Sebba's heroine, but for the last three weeks I have been living through her (to the extent of now being utterly exhausted!) in the same way as I might reading a great novel. Jennie was reputed to have had two hundred lovers, yet her discretion was such that only a dozen or so can be verified. An aphorism of the day was cache ton jeu, and so good was she at 'hiding her game' that despite a three year period in which she regularly entertained the Prince of Wales while her husband was away - private lunches, afternoons and teas - there is nothing in the numerous notes they exchanged to suggest they were actually having an affair.
Nonetheless, her physicality, her love of being beautiful (though paradoxically, without vanity) her love and expectation of being desired, run through her life. Her second and third husbands were twenty years younger than she was, both famous for their good looks, but Jennie, first in her forties and then in her sixties, manages to `capture' them with her physical allure. She observes (but does not bemoan) the day she walked into a room and was no longer the most beautiful woman there.
But if this smacks of self-love, Jennie evokes sympathy and admiration a hundred times more than irritation. Her first husband, Randolph Churchill, was clearly bored by her soon after their marriage, but Jennie's love of him and yearning for that love to be reciprocated is painful. When Randolph's political life ends ignominiously and his health flounders (probably from syphilis he contracted as a student), she stands by him to the end.
But whereas Randolph never lives up to her expectations of him and in some important sense fails her, in her son, Winston, Jennie can finally flourish. She is so convinced of his star that as he sets out in life she pulls every string she can, introducing him to anyone and everyone whom she considers politically astute and can help him on his way. Even when Winston himself is thrown out of the cabinet during the First World War, and volunteers to go to the Front, she never seems anxious that he will die so convinced is she of his ultimate destiny. She feels instinctively that Winston cannot err, and that faith in him is transmuted, without doubt, into Winston's faith in himself. She never lived to see Winston become `the greatest Briton' but there is no doubt in this reader's mind that she planted the seed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Jennie Churchill: Winston's American Mother audio book
Much of this is new to me and gives a real insight into Jenny's life
Published on 17 Jan 2010 by P. Golding
A dazzling review
It has ben a while since I enjoyed a biography as much as I enjoyed
Anne Sebba's Jennie Churchill. Read more
Anne Sebba's Jennie Churchill. Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2007 by Mr. R. Jones
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