FDR's charm and coldness

He was the greatest president of my lifetime and he was a son of a bitch every day. Hischarm and cheer blinded you, made you deaf to your own thoughts, until all you could do was nod and smile, while the frost came down, killing you where you stood. He broke hearts and ambitions across his knee like bits of kindling, and then he dusted off his hands and said, Who's for cocktails?

Amy Bloom, White Houses (New York: Penguin Random House, 2018), p. 146 (voice of a fictionalized Lorena Hickok)