I know a little bit about writing and I know a little bit about Theodore Roosevelt. The latter part of that sentence could be misleading: compared to the average person today, I probably know quite a bit about Roosevelt; compared to scholars, I don’t know much at all. I do know that I admired him enough to name my son Quentin after his youngest son who was killed as an aviator in WWI.

Candice Millard’s book about the exploration of the River of Doubt (now Roosevelt River) is excellently done and highlights other outstanding members of the group, as well as highlighting the outstanding effort put forth by even the most unknown and uneducated workers who packed the mules, set up the camps, fought the rapids and, like Roosevelt, gave their all.

It reads as easily  as a very good fiction book, almost as if the spirits of great authors gathered to help guide Millard’s choice of words, knowing this story and these men deserved the very best.

And the best includes not just the things that worked out.  Roosevelt’s second son, Kermit, accompanied his father on this trip. In writing this book, Millard, touches on the business of what is in our stars.

Roosevelt did the best he could, but he was lucky to have inherited  crucial aspects to enable that to happen. He had a brother who obviously came from the same stock, the exact same gene pool, and yet Elliot was plagued with personal attributes that led to a dissolute life of alcoholism and irresponsibility – among other things, he fathered a child by one of the household maids. Theodore had to have him institutionalized for a while, and when Elliot died at a relatively  young age, Theodore sobbed over his body, remembering the golden youth that once had been, but got derailed.

Genes. Roosevelt saw the same ability in his son Kermit that he had seen in Elliot, and he also saw the same tendencies toward introspection and black depression. He strove to guide Kermit, who excelled when he had a physically challenging mission to accomplish, but who languished at the matter-of-factness of day-to-day life that involved offices and a roof over his head and a regular bed to sleep in at night.

Genes: Theodore Roosevelt wanted his children to pull their weight, not be afraid of trying, to challenge themselves, to be responsible. Yet, Roosevelt, when faced with his first wife’s  and mother’s death on the same day and the prospect of raising a newborn daughter – Alice Roosevelt Longworth – took off for the vigorous trials of the west, leaving the child to the care of his sister.  He said black care could not stay close to a fast rider – or something like that. But, he had that option financially. The question is: did he have that option morally? I don’t know. In a way, instead of facing the days of sameness and the forging of a bond between father and motherless daughter, he opted for, shall we harken back to Kermit and say the idea of a mission of hard physical work?

Why am I going into all of this? I suppose because occasionally I think about it; how ironic things can be. Like beauty being a matter of millimeters, so personalities and character are determined by one enzyme here, one there, one synapse too long or too short or just right. Strengths and weaknesses that cancel each other out – or with a catalyst spell disaster.

Well, anyway, one way or another, The River of Doubt reveals part of a lifespan of a man who turned out more than okay and reveals it with skill; another well-schooled writer might have attempted the task and got it technically right. Fortunately, genes came together to give Candice Millard the talent to get everything, in the vernacular of Little Red Riding Hood, just right.