There have been many books on Theodore Roosevelt, but there are none that solely focus on the last years of his life. Racked by rheumatism, a ticking embolism, pathogens in his blood, a bad leg from an accident, and a bullet in his chest from an assassination attempt, in the last two years of his life from April 1917 to January 6, 1919, he went from the great disappointment of being denied his own regiment in World War I, leading a suicide mission of Rough Riders against the Germans, to the devastating news that his son Quentin had been shot down and killed over France. Suffering from grief and guilt, marginalized by world events, the great glow that had been his life was now but a dimming lantern. But TR’s final years were productive ones as well: he churned out several “instant” books that promoted U.S. entry into the Great War, and he was making plans for another run at the Presidency in 1920 at the time of his death. Indeed, his political influence was so great that his opposition to the policies of Woodrow Wilson helped the Republican Party take back the Congress in 1918. However, as William Hazelgrove points out in this book, it was Roosevelt’s quest for the “vigorous life” that, ironically, may have led to his early demise at the age of sixty. "The Old Lion is dead,” TR’s son Archie cabled his brother on January 6, 1919, and so, too, ended a historic era in American life and politics.

ウィリアム・ヘイゼルグローヴが描くのは、英雄の黄昏という名の壮絶な闘争劇です。「活動的生」を体現したルーズベルトが、病と悲嘆に苛まれながら最期まで魂を燃やし尽くす姿には、凄絶な美しさが宿っています。彼の強靭さが皮肉にも命を削る過程は、運命に抗う人間を描いた文学的なカタルシスを想起させます。 本作は、権力者の仮面の下にある「老いた獅子」の孤独と、次期大統領選への執念を浮き彫りにします。愛する息子を失った絶望の中でなお言葉を武器に闘い続けたその軌跡は、読者の魂を激しく揺さぶるでしょう。情熱に殉じた男の真実の叙事詩として、一時代の終焉を鮮烈に刻みつける傑作です。