If a Poem Could Live and Breathe: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt's First Love

A fact-based romantic speculative novel about Teddy Roosevelt's first love, by Mary Calvi, author of Dear George, Dear Mary.

Studded with the real love letters between a young Theodore Roosevelt and Boston beauty Alice Lee--many of them never before published--If a Poem Could Live and Breathe makes vivid what many historians believe to be the pivotal years that made the future president into the man of action that defined his political life, and cemented his legacy.

Cambridge, 1878. The era of the Gilded Age. Alice Lee sets out to break from the norms of her mother's generation. Women are fighting for educational opportunities and exploring a new sense of intellectual and personal freedom. Native New Yorker, Harvard student Teddy Roosevelt, is on his own journey of discovery, and when they meet, unrelenting currents of love change the trajectory of his life forever.

If a Poem Could Live and Breathe is an indelible portrait of the authenticity of first love, the heartache of loss, and how overcoming the worst of life's obstacles can push one to greatness never imagined.

Author: Mary Calvi
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 02/14/2023
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.40w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781250277831

About the Author
MARY CALVI is a 12-time New York Emmy award-winning journalist for WCBS-TV and weekend anchor of Inside Edition. Her in-depth research for her debut book, DEAR GEORGE, DEAR MARY: A Novel of George Washington's First Love, is the basis of a Smithsonian Channel documentary. Calvi lives in Yonkers, New York.