Clay Risen answes questions about "The Crowded Hour" before Day book event

June 18, 2020 12:00 am • Last Updated: June 19, 2020 7:33 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Author Clay Risen discusses Rough Riders before Day book club event

Turning points in history sometimes happen by accident. Other times, they might spin forth from a collision of circumstances and engineered coersion. It's in the latter context that bestselling author Clay Risen has written a fresh and distinctive history of one of America's most storied military units.

The book is called "The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century," and, on Tuesday, Risen will be the latest guest on a live virtual edition of our "Read of The Day" book club, co-sponsored with Bank Square Books. I'll be hosting the conversation with Risen, who has also written two previous books of history, "The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights" and "A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination," as well as two volumes on premium scotch and whiskey. Risen is also the deputy op-ed editor for The New York Times.

Despite the numerous books on Roosevelt and/or the Rough Riders, Risen focuses in "The Crowded Hour" on a pivotal aspect for his reporting. At the end of the 19th century, as America was still transitioning from the Civil War through a bumbling period of protracted and theoretical healing, some of the nation's leaders were also trying to reshape our role in the world. The new "modernist" view was that America's destiny was to serve as a sort of global peacekeeper and liberator. And an immediate part of this prescription — militarily, politically, and symbolically — would be to free Cuba from Spanish rule.

Of course, the headline attraction of what became the Spanish-American War was the Rough Riders, a volunteer unit of soldiers organized by Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood, a physician, Army Major and public official every bit Teddy's charismatic equal. But in addition to the outfit's quickly mustered prowess and and Hollywood-style image, they helped to dramatize the conflict in a huge way since the post-Civil War U.S. military was virtually non-existent.

At the time, Roosevelt was 38 and already renowned for his intellect, wide-ranging adventures, natural curiosity, and accomplishments. But he felt unfulfilled and wanted a challenge that would fortify not only himself but also the country. All these elements clashed together in what Roosevelt described as "a crowded hour" in American history, and Risen's book is an informative read that provides quick-paced drama with a blockbuster cast of characters and no shortage of behind-the-scenes Washington D.C. intrigue.

In advance of his virtual appearance Tuesday, Risen spoke on the phone earlier this week to answer a few "whet your appetite" questions about "The Crowded Hour" and his career. Witty and congenial but equally concerned about our tumultuous times, he's a compelling conversationalist.

Q: One of the things that stands out about "The Crowded Hour" is the easy narrative flow and structure, given that parts of the story are pretty well-known and also that you're juggling a LOT of material, characters and historical minutiae. Was it hard to harness all that and still create momentum and a rising sense of anticipation?

A: I tried to write fiction a few times and failed terribly. I even took a class on it, and it's just not my thing. But I grew up as a professional journalist, and you learn that, even in a straight news story, you want tension. And I pay a lot of attention to that because it doesn't come naturally to me. Part of what is important for me, particularly with this book, is that the story has plenty of tension because you can't make stuff up. You can emphasize certain characters or aspects — some writers choose not to do that and maybe some authors don't even think about it — but that's at the core of my approach.

Q: There's obviously a big appeal in the pure story of the Rough Riders, but you write very compellingly about the background that sets up the big moments. It's almost as though those elements were as compelling to you. Is that fair to say?

A: There IS a very cinematic quality to this story, but a lot of that is grounded in the background information. The country is going off to war but, militarily, we're not near ready. And despite all his accomplishments. Teddy still very much feels he has something yet to prove. It's fascinating the way he gets the Rough Rider volunteers plugged into the history of the moment and how he instinctively feeds off the energy of what the country needs. Yes, the book climaxes with a big battle on San Juan Hill, and I knew readers could rely on that, but I also used that to reel them in to the bigger story.

Q: While reading "The Crowded Hour," I became attached to several characters NOT named Roosevelt or Leonard Wood (who, yes, earn their star power). The Rough Riders Hamilton Fish, Allyn Capron and Theodore Miller and the journalist Richard Harding Davis are just a few examples. Obviously, of the hundreds of members of the Rough Riders, you zeroed in on a few whom readers instantly root for and want to know more about. Talk about that angle and your selection process, so to speak.

A: Finding the characters you describe doesn't come easy, and it took a couple of drafts for them to emerge. This is nonfiction, so I had to consciously set out to find characters that speak for themselves rather than just in support of the trunk line broad story. I read a lot of diaries and, as a writer, I had to pivot a lot and find information about a guy who, when fleshed out, might pull the reader along. I was very lucky to find a couple of characters that did that. History limits you; if someone didn't write diaries or leave correspondence or whatever, you have nothing to go on. There are a lot of Rough Riders we just don't know much about.

Q: Is it hard to detach yourself from the present day while you're writing history? You have the luxury of hindsight — or is that in fact detrimental? — in seeing how things turned out as a result of an event. In this case, you're writing about a huge and tectonic philosophical shift in the way America chose to conduct itself on the global stage.

A: You don't want to write history though the lens of the present. That's what history IS, but you want to be fair to the past without editing for the present. With the book, I was focusing on the question at the time: What IS America's place in the world, and what role should we play? I started the book in 2015, and if I'd started it today, it might have a slightly different take ... One thing I've learned is that you're never more likely to be wrong than when everything seems certain. The book as I wrote it was born of a certain optimism built around the election of Obama and what that seemed to indicate. But after Ferguson and the election of Trump, it's very different. If I were writing the book proposal today, it would come from the perspective that, for better or worse, we are much more at a crossroads.