Thoroughly enjoyed this.it was very similar to reading mornings on horseback, the biography, except you didn’t have to imagine the conversations because the author provided them for you. I think the marketing was a little off, as it did not really read like an old style pulp, but it was heart breaking and , I think , captured the enigma that TR is and was ( )

A delightful book. Teddy Roosevelt is a larger than life figure with a life story that is quite an adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed this fictionalized account of the life of Teddy Roosevelt. ( )

Brought Teddy Roosevelt to life in an earnest pulp tale that makes him human and not the larger than life character I knew. Also America, one long mountebank act a Russian Doll of cons.... ( )

This was a wonderful story for both adults and students. Historically accurate and written in a style that kept the attention of both my middle school aged children and my history buff husband. Teddy Roosevelt remains a larger than life figure that inspires and entertains. Admittedly, we were already big TR fans. We listened to it as a family on a long car trip and we highly recommend it. ( )

Teddy Roosevelt was indeed a heroic figure whose words seem prescient:

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official…It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country… It is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

Charyn succeeds in telling Teddy Roosevelt’s origin story by recreating his voice. This approach gives us the birth of a heroic persona with all of the folksiness and grandiosity one might expect from Teddy. Masquerading as pulp fiction, this entertaining account is filled with the expected humor and boasting, but also contains the doubt and pathos that Roosevelt skillfully hid from view. Charyn wisely realizes that much of the original source material comes from Roosevelt’s own writings. Thus, the parsing of truth and fantasy would be nearly impossible. So why not just tell the story of a superhero in the style of the dime novels that were so popular in Roosevelt’s time? Clearly, the grandiose title and cover art reflect this belief.

Despite required settings in North Dakota and Cuba, the heart of this novel is set in Manhattan. Charyn evokes the city through its politics, which were unabashedly corrupt. This provides Teddy with the perfect milieu to display his bona fides as a progressive reformer. Charyn sets this stage for Teddy by developing the character of his father, a man Roosevelt called Brave Heart. BH never failed to encourage his sickly son while also displaying courage and empathy, especially toward the homeless newsboys of the city.

The cast of characters is bewilderingly vast, with corrupt pols, prostitutes, journalists, ranchers, soldiers, policemen, etc.. But, in the final analysis, the core of the story becomes Teddy’s family. His first wife, Alice, has a small role because she died young leaving Roosevelt with a daughter, Baby Lee. His second wife, Edith, proves to be the perfect partner for the man. Teddy’s brother Elliott is a burden due to his addictions and philandering, but someone he never fails to love and protect. With all of this aside, the star attraction happens to be a cougar cub by the name of Josephine. Roosevelt adopts this military mascot following the Cuban conflict. Thereafter, he never overcomes his guilt for failing to accommodate her into his lifestyle after the war.

The plot dutifully covers the high points in Roosevelt’s life, including his sickly childhood, his education at Harvard, his roles as husband and father, as well as his careers in law enforcement, combat, and politics. However, the tragedy of losing his wife and mother to disease on the same day stands out as a key turning point. Those losses drove him to the Badlands of North Dakota where he discovered his legendary persona as a Western sheriff and tough but honest cowboy. He reveled in this image while still clinging to the trappings of Eastern entitlement. Charyn never lets him off the hook in this regard by describing a cowboy lawman “with silver stirrups, a tailored buckskin suit, and a Bowie knife from Tiffany’s…” or a Rough Rider with a tent from Abercrombie & Fitch.

The narrative is loosely episodic but always lively and entertaining. With a subject like Teddy Roosevelt, one would be tempted to be fawning. Instead Charyn gives us a remarkably human narrator. ( )