If a Poem Could Live and Breathe: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt’s First Love
Death in childbirth used to be horribly common, even up to modern times. In the historical example that inspired this romantic novel, it changed the course of history.
Emmy-winning journalist and Inside Edition anchor Mary Calvi has followed up her first novel, Dear Mary: A Novel of George Washington’s First Love, with this touching, dramatically fictionalized history of Theodore Roosevelt’s first marriage. Alice Hathaway Lee married Roosevelt in 1880 at the age of nineteen, following an ecstatic courtship that began with love at first sight on his part.
She was a Boston Brahmin and debutante, a tall, blond beauty whose sweetness of character gave her the nickname “Sunshine.” When they met, Roosevelt was a Harvard student who immediately set out on a career in New York politics. The young couple anticipated a long and productive life together. Then on Valentine’s Day of 1884, Alice died following the birth of their first child, also Alice.
As if this were not enough to devastate her bereaved husband, his mother died the same day. Although Roosevelt immersed himself in politics, made a life-changing excursion to Dakota Territory, eventually remarried, and, of course, became an outstanding president, he never fully recovered. To the end of his life, he refused to mention his late wife’s name. The loss turned him into a different man—and president.
This, although true, is the stuff of sentimental romance and melodrama, and Calvi does not always avoid either pitfall. But she has done extensive research in Roosevelt archives and successfully weaves quotes from the couple’s actual love letters into her text, producing an entertaining novel to devour with tissues nearby.
