All she wanted was her father’s approval, but when Theodore Roosevelt looked at his daughter, Alice, all he saw was his beloved wife who had died giving her birth. Alice loved her stepmother, but Edith had a brood of younger children taking up her time, so Alice lived her life finding ways to get attention.
Of course, she had had a good education, especially for a woman, so her father endeavored to use her popularity with the press to his advantage. He sent her on photogenic foreign trips and made sure that she repeated all the approved party lines to the press. She was charming and witty, but journalists are always sniffing for a whiff of scandal. Alice’s friends were not the most virtuous ingénues in Washington, unlike her boring cousin Eleanor, and she loved living on the edge. Her parents read the society pages each morning with trepidation. Alice carried on so scandalously with Nick Longworth that it is a wonder that she didn’t find herself with child before they finally married. After many years of marriage, however, she decided that she was unable to conceive a child, only to find out during her affair with Senator Borah at age 40 that, surprisingly, that was not the case.
The first part of Thornton’s novel reads like a historical romance, and I admit that I was disappointed. As Alice grows older, however, the story becomes more serious, as well. Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was born in tragedy, and her long life was punctuated with sorrow. She was witness to— and often in the center of— great historical events, including the turn of the 20th century, two world wars, and the first moon landing. She held salons filled with the movers and shakers of government, and she traveled all over the world. She outlived almost everyone she knew, and she knew almost everyone. Her later years found her meeting Queen Elizabeth when she was just a sweet young thing of 50 and Jacqueline Kennedy just after she became Jacqueline Onassis. She never lost her wit or her spunk before she died at the age of ninety-six.
This enjoyable novel is perfect for students of twentieth-century history, admirers of the heroic lives of great women, and anyone who enjoys a ripping story filled with far too much action to fit into one life—except that it did.
Recommended.
Disclaimer: I read an advance reader copy of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.
** This is the cover of the galley that I read; however, the cover will be updated before publication on March 12th.
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