Edward Kelsey Moore on Why Eleanor Roosevelt?

Many readers have asked me why I chose to have the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt appear as a character in THE SUPREMES AT EARL’S ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT.  At readings, I’m asked about her more often than any character other than Odette, the central character of the book.  Early readers in Germany found her so interesting that the German translation of the novel was released with the title MRS. ROOSEVELT UND DAS WUNDER VON EARL’S DINER (Mrs. Roosevelt and the Miracle of Earl's Diner).  The primary reason I included Eleanor Roosevelt as the companion of Dora, Odette’s mother, is that I truly revere her.  She was an astonishing and inspirational woman who spent a lifetime speaking out for human rights and extending a hand to poor and oppressed people, both inside the United States and around the world.  And she devoted herself to these important and noble causes at a time when doing so was not just unpopular, but dangerous.
 
But anyone who has read THE SUPREMES AT EARL’S ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT knows that the
noble humanitarian I admire is not the same Eleanor Roosevelt who appears in the novel.  The character in THE SUPREMES is a ghostly troublemaker.  She drinks to excess.  She loves bawdy stories.  She climbs trees.  My fictional Eleanor Roosevelt came about because I love the idea that, perhaps, when you are one of the major forces for positive change during your century,
your reward might be to spend eternity doing any little thing that strikes you as fun.
 
Why Eleanor Roosevelt?  Because I wrote a novel about friendship that proposes that dead people are enjoying the afterlife, unseen, here beside us.  And because I believe if any spirit deserves the pleasures of an afterlife of unbridled good times and wildness if she chooses,
it’s Mrs. Roosevelt.    -- Edward Kelsey Moore
 
Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.
Eleanor Roosevelt, YOU LEARN BY LIVING
 
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt, THIS IS MY STORY
 
The important thing is neither your nationality nor the religion you professed, but how your faith translated itself in your life.    Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day," September 16, 1943

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