My Year with Eleanor (35 page)

Authors: Noelle Hancock

In the interest of privacy, I've changed the names* or identifying characteristics of various individuals. That said, this is a work of nonfiction. The events and experiences detailed herein are true. I did, indeed, do one scary thing every day for a year, never cheating by skipping a day. Initially I planned to write about all of them, but it soon became clear the book would be a trillion pages long and likely to induce stupefaction. So I've chronicled the highlights, occasionally compressing or altering the timeline.

* This is really quite a challenge, by the wayâcoming up with fake names for forty people. Once you know someone's name it's nearly impossible to imagine them having any other name. (Also, that I was able to resist giving the rare obnoxious character an unbecoming nameâlike Dickâshows a great leap in personal growth.) Individuals whose names and characteristics weren't changed for purposes of discretion include Jessica, Chris, and Bill, who've never been discreet in their lives.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I'd like to acknowledge that this book would not exist without Eleanor Roosevelt. She inspired the idea for the project and inspired me on a daily basis as I faced my fears. Though the book is called
My Year with Eleanor
, I know that her life story will continue to inspire me for years to come. I'm forever grateful for all she has done for me.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the wonderful and wise Dr. Robert Leahy for his guidance over the years and for helping me better understand fear. He is the best cognitive therapist around and a warm and generous spirit. He also has a fantastic laugh.

I'm basically in love with the Friedrich Agency; they believed in this book from the beginning and go to bat for it every day. A big thanks to the holy trinity: the unsinkable Molly Friedrich, the indispensable Lucy Carson, and the tireless foreign rights agent Paul Cirone. Their endless encouragement throughout this process has been such a blessing in my life. I don't think of them as my agents but as friends who happen to get a commission.

Thanks to the fabulous team at Ecco Press, which has been incredibly supportive of
My Year with Eleanor
. I was lucky to have as my editor the charming Lee Boudreaux, who loved Eleanor as much as I did. She took on this book with unbelievable enthusiasm and vision. Her editorial notes were always thoughtful and thorough and frequently hilarious. I'm hoping one day she'll tell me where she gets her energy. I'm also indebted to Abigail Holstein, who worked diligently alongside Lee and patiently answered my every question and email (of which there were many). Virginia “Ginny” Smith was the acquiring editor of this book but later took a job with another company. She was always a big supporter of my writing, and I'm very appreciative of the early work she put in on the manuscript.

The following individuals held my hand during my Year of Fear: the staff at Trapeze School New York and Long Island Skydiving; Robert “Boom” Powell and the rest of the highly trained staff at Air Combat USA; Avi Miller and Ofer Ben, my ridiculously fun and talented tap dance instructors at Broadway Dance Center; Good Earth Tours and the guides who helped me climb Mount Kilimanjaro, especially Dismas, the most patient man on planet Earth, who somehow resisted throwing me off the mountain when I got grouchy; Christa Rowe, who brought my rotator cuff back from the dead after I injured it in trapeze class and helped get my out-of-shape ass up that mountain.

Throughout the writing of this book, I leaned heavily on these lovely people: Ryan Fischer-Harbage and Christa Bourg, two unparalleled writing instructors whose exceptional advice brought this book to fruition. Christa is an incredible mentor and single-handedly kept me sane when I was on deadline. Lindsey James, my childhood best friend and the most well-read person I know, spent hours slogging through hundreds of pages and gave brilliant notes, all the way from Texas. The staff at the Starbucks on Ninth Street and Second Avenueâwhere much of this book was writtenâkept the caffeine coming at a steady clip.

I'd like to give big hugs to the early believers, including Allison Yarrow, Corey Binns, Whitney Frick, Matt McCarthy, Lindsay Robertson, Joe Levy, and Neil Turitz. Rob “Not Ron” Tannenbaum, John Phillips, and Mark Lisanti are far funnier than I am and are responsible for some of my favorite lines in the book. I can't say enough thanks to my friends who showed up to the stand-up comedy show and cheered louder than everyone else's friends. Ditto to everyone who came to the trapeze recital, specifically Manish Vora, Josh Dienstag, Sara Kang, and Garrett Wheeler, who painted my name on their stomachs and started a possibly illegal cocktail party in the alley out back.

I am eternally grateful to Amanda Lerman, Lorena O'Neil, and especially Katharine Sise, who are always there for me. They listened to me freak out countless times about this book, without complaint, and talked me down from the ledge on several occasions. I absolutely adore them.

God bless my wonderful parents, Myatt and Bitsy Hancock, my brother Jeff Hancock, and my sister Jordan Hancock, who have been amazingly supportive. I'm very lucky to have them.

I offer my greatest gratitude to Jessica Coen, Chris Rovzar, Bill Schulz, and “Matt” (who's not really named Matt but wanted a pseudonym to keep his private life semi-private and because he was worried people would judge him for getting caught having almost sex in a bathroom at a wedding). I simply could not have written this book without them. Everything I mentioned aboveâpeople showing up to my ridiculous events and cheering loudly, listening to me freak out about the book, reading the book and offering input, coming up with better jokes than I ever couldâthey did all of that and more. They are my All of the Above. Without hesitation, they let me write about their lives. It's never easy to be written about, especially if you're in the media and understand the drawbacks that can come with being immortalized in print. I'm deeply grateful to have them in the book and in my life. They make everything better.

Recommended Reading

I cannot recommend highly enough the following books, which I turned to time and time again while researching
My Year with Eleanor:

Â Â Â Â â¢Â Â Â
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
by Eleanor Roosevelt (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2000)

Â Â Â Â â¢Â Â Â
You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
by Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011)

Â Â Â Â â¢Â Â Â
Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery
by Russell Freedman (Solana Beach, CA: Sandpiper, 1997)

Â Â Â Â â¢Â Â Â
Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt's Remarkable Life
by Candace Fleming (New York: Atheneum/Anne Schwartz Books, 2005)

About the Author

N
OELLE
H
ANCOCK
is a former staff writer for the
New York Observer
. She was the founding writer of
Us Weekly
's entertainment blog and helped launch the website for the popular gossip column “Page Six.” Her work has appeared in
Rolling Stone, GQ, Blender,
the
New York Post, Maxim, Cosmopolitan, Page Six Magazine, Marie Claire
U.K., Nymag.com, and Gawker, among other publications and websites. She was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Yale University. She lives in Manhattan with her parakeets, Jesus and Stuart. Her parents are still holding out for law school.

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Credits

Cover photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt Â© Bettmann/Corbis

MY YEAR WITH ELEANOR. Copyright Â© 2011 by Noelle Hancock. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!
â¢ & Â© 1990 Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

FIRST EDITION

EPub Edition Â© JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780062092137

Version 02152013

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