[A] sure-handed narrative of how FDR faced down threats to his life and leadership… a compelling story of how close we came to a national breakdown in 1933 and how one man's leadership made all the difference.” —Miami Herald
“[A] brisk, cogent narrative.” —Boston Globe
“A valuable reminder of how the four years following 1932 steered America in an uncharted direction … Readable and informative.” —Wall Street Journal
“[A] thoroughly readable primer on political discourse in the early years of the Great Depression.” —Washington Post
“[F]ascinating, heart-breaking, life-affirming… While sketching with a novelist's compassion and precision the unique actors and forces and ideas at play during the turbulent Depression years, [Denton's] account simultaneously transcends the minutia of the 1930s and reveals brilliant insights into our current condition. Yet, until the book's closing sentences, she makes no explicit comparisons, trusting the intelligent reader to draw the obvious parallels.” —BNReview.com
“The little-remembered history of the frighteningly real conspiracy against American democracy during the 1930s has never been so dramatically told. Nor has its somber warning ever been more urgently needed. This astonishing story, brought vividly to life by Sally Denton, is one that no American dare ignore, and that every true patriot must ponder.” —Ronald Steel, author of Walter Lippmann and the American Century
“Denton traces today's right-wing "paranoid style" to the nascent fascist movement that opposed Roosevelt” —Publishers Weekly
“In this tale of a popular president, resentful Wall Street bankers and wacko wing-nuts, the author has found a story whose parallels to today are eerie.” —Kirkus
“An interesting and timely reminder that economic crises threaten the survival of cherished political freedoms.” —Booklist
Investigative journalist Denton (Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas, 2009, etc.) follows critical moments in the career of four-term president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, demonized by far left and far right, escaped an assassin's bullet and a bizarre coup plot. In this tale of a popular president, resentful Wall Street bankers and wacko wing-nuts, the author has found a story whose parallels to today are eerie--perhaps more starkly than they merit because of the prominence she awards them. She focuses on two episodes: the gunshots fired by Giuseppe Zangara at FDR in 1933 following a speech in Miami and the crack-brained coup attempt supposedly spearheaded by bond trader Gerald MacGuire, who was fronting for some conservative powerhouse businessmen who were unhappy with FDR's early financial moves. MacGuire had approached war hero Marine General Smedley Darlington Butler about his plot; aghast, Butler listened and then blew the whistle. Subsequently--and perhaps consequently?--FDR cracked down even harder on Wall Street and the banks. Denton's research, though wide and deep, suffers some because she could find out nothing of consequence about assassination threats from the close-mouthed Secret Service--though she does credit the FBI for cooperation. Additionally, she spends so many pages summarizing the political rise, personal life and early presidency of FDR that the title of the book sometimes seems misrepresentative. Demonstrates how political popularity has a bitter, resentful relative who acts as if elections are valid only when his side wins--and who sometimes packs heat.
