Chronicles of the post-presidential years of America's chief executives aren't generally scintillating reads. With a few exceptions--Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover come to mind--the period after presidents vacate the White House tends to be abbreviated, idle, and a little sad. Patricia O'Toole's absorbing account of Theodore Roosevelt's final decade carries some of this pathos, but she also vividly captures the spark and sometimes reckless vigor of the most vibrant of presidents. Possessed of an irrepressible self-confidence and insatiable appetite for power, Roosevelt made an unconvincing show of stepping out of the spotlight when he declined to seek reelection in 1909, bequeathing the presidency to loyal foot soldier William Howard Taft. Over the course of Taft's one rather lackluster term, Roosevelt embarked on an extended African safari (where the trailblazing conservationist slaughtered hundreds of animals), but upon his return he became embroiled in a battle with Taft for the heart of the Republican Party. When he lost that struggle, he turned to the budding Progressive Party. Under their banner, Roosevelt bested Taft in the 1912 election, but Woodrow Wilson, of course, beat them both. Roosevelt's bursting-at-the-seams life has been thoroughly chronicled, but O'Toole wisely focuses on a period when the never-retiring giant of American politics was wounded (both figuratively and literally--he was shot while campaigning and insisted on giving a speech before going to a hospital), but wouldn't, or couldn't, give up the fight. --Steven Stolder


From Publishers Weekly
Numerous books—most notably Joseph L. Gardner's classic Departing Glory: Theodore Roosevelt as Ex-President—have addressed TR's 10 years of postpresidential life (1909–1919), which will also be the focus of the final installment in Edmund Morris's monumental three-volume biography. While coming up with little in the way of news, O'Toole (The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends) is straightforward and accurate, satisfactorily narrating the well-worn facts of TR's growing dissatisfaction with his hand-chosen successor, William Howard Taft; his own failed bid to return to the White House as a progressive candidate in 1912, and his nearly fatal 1914 exploration of Brazil's River of Doubt. Equally workmanlike is O'Toole's sketching of TR's clashes with the Wilson administration and the drama of his sending four sons off to war (three returned). It's in her consideration of the 50-year-old TR's safari through British East Africa in 1909 that O'Toole takes her narrative beyond earlier accounts via access to the previously unavailable papers of Sir Alfred Pease, TR's host for a significant slice of time in today's Kenya. One wishes she'd expanded her consideration of TR's adventures with Pease and others and made this into a more vivid and interesting book than this one. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* To the question of what Teddy Roosevelt did before becoming president, Edmund Morris supplied a Pulitzer Prize-winning answer in The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979), and then David McCullough provided a National Book Award-winning answer in Mornings on Horseback (1981). But what did TR do after his presidency? Plenty, according to this new and greatly informative account. O'Toole is the author of the critically well received Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends (1990), and her scholarship here is just as scrupulous and her interpretations of character and motivations just as sound and fresh. As we follow in dramatic detail (the only suitable kind of detail when dealing with the old Rough Rider), Teddy, after leaving the White House occupied by his handpicked successor, William Taft, went on a long safari in Africa. But by the time he arrived back home, he was showing definite impatience with his protege. His desire for a third term brought disaster for the Republican Party in the 1912 election and ensured a Democratic victory. TR died in 1919, and the lasting impression from this excellently drawn postpresidential biography is that he became chief executive too early in his life, possessing too much energy, attitude, and ego to be a truly effective ex-president. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"Just when we think we know pretty much all there is to know about the vibrant and dynamic Theodore Roosevelt, along comes Patricia O'Toole with a political page-turner. She is one of our most graceful prose writers, and the clarity and insight of her research into what made TR tick have resulted in the best political biography that we are likely to have for many years to come." -- Deirdre Bair, author of Jung: A Biography

"Filled with surprises, stunning, and vivid. Patricia O'Toole has contributed a powerful new addition to our understanding of Theodore Roosevelt's life and legacy." -- Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt

"When Trumpets Call is the best biography I have read in years. Patricia O'Toole has brilliantly re-created the final years of one of our greatest American presidents. Here is Theodore Roosevelt with all his faults and with all his strengths -- the devoted family man, the passionate game hunter, the far-sighted statesman, the astute politician, the frustrated warrior. This is a deeply moving account of the last years of a very great man." -- David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln


Review
"With profound artistry and an empathy unclouded by sentiment, Patricia O'Toole re-creates one of the most poignant chapters in presidential history -- Theodore Roosevelt at twilight. Anything but retiring, her TR is a beguiling compound of individual courage, political vision, shameless ego, and a charisma undimmed by a century's passage. His public career is fascinating enough, but it is O'Toole's private Roosevelt that will haunt readers of this beautifully crafted book. Few will be able to put it down without a catch in the throat."-- Richard Norton Smith, Executive Director, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library


Jon Meacham, NEWSWEEK
"Splendid....O'Toole brings eloquence and keen psychological insight to a familiar subject....A lovely, unpretentiously learned tale."


Kathleen Dalton, BOSTON GLOBE
"Delectable stories and fine historical writing fill O'Toole's pages....A must read for anyone who loves or hates TR."


Janet Maslin, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Incisive....Roosevelt's fighting spirit is captured in all its indefatigability here."


Harry Levins, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
"O'Toole captures both sides of this binary man....And O'Toole writes with grace and wit....Read this book."


Steve Weinberg, THE BALTIMORE SUN
"Breaks new ground . . . A fuller picture of the former president than existed before . . . Ought to serve as model for biographers."


Book Description
A remarkable portrait of one of our most remarkable presidents, When Trumpets Call focuses on Theodore Roosevelt's life after the White House. TR had reveled in his power and used it to enlarge the scope of the office, expand government's role in economic affairs, and increase U.S. influence abroad. Only fifty when he left the White House, he would spend the rest of his life longing to return. Drawing from a wealth of new and previously unused sources, Patricia O'Toole, author of the highly acclaimed biography of Henry Adams and his friends, The Five of Hearts, conducts the first thorough investigation of the most eventful, most revealing decade of Roosevelt's life. When he left office in March 1909, Roosevelt went on safari, leaving the political stage to William Howard Taft, the friend he had selected to succeed him. Home from Africa and gravely disappointed in Taft, he could not resist challenging Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. When Taft bested him, Roosevelt formed the Bull Moose Party and ran for president on a third ticket, a move that split the Republican vote and put Woodrow Wilson in the White House. In 1914, after the beginning of World War I, Roosevelt became the most vocal critic of Wilson's foreign policy, and two years later, hoping to oust Wilson, Roosevelt maneuvered behind the scenes in another failed bid for the Republican nomination. Turned down by Wilson in his request to raise troops and take them to France, TR helped his four sons realize their wish to serve, then pressured Washington to speed up the war effort. His youngest son was killed on Bastille Day, 1918. Theodore Roosevelt died six months later. His last written words were a reminder to himself to see the chairman of the Republican Party. Surprising, original, deeply moving, When Trumpets Call is a portrait framed by a deeply human question: What happens to a powerful man when he loses power? Most of all, it is an unforgettable close-up of Theodore Roosevelt as he struggled not only to recover power but also to maintain a much-needed sense of purpose. Through her perceptive treatment of his last decade, Patricia O'Toole shows why Theodore Roosevelt still enjoys the affection and esteem of Americans across the political spectrum.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"When Trumpets Call focuses on Theodore Roosevelt's life after the White House. TR had reveled in his power and used it to enlarge the scope of the office, expand government's role in economic affairs, and increase U.S. influence abroad. Only fifty when he left the White House, he would spend the rest of his life longing to return. Drawing from a wealth of new and previously unused sources, Patricia O'Toole conducts the first thorough investigation of the most eventful, most revealing decade of Roosevelt's life." "When he left office in March 1909, Roosevelt went on safari, leaving the political stage to William Howard Taft, the friend he had selected to succeed him. Home from Africa and gravely disappointed in Taft, he could not resist challenging Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. When Taft bested him, Roosevelt formed the Bull Moose Party and ran for president on a third ticket, a move that split the Republican vote and put Woodrow Wilson in the White House." In 1914, after the beginning of World War I, Roosevelt became the most vocal critic of Wilson's foreign policy, and two years later, hoping to oust Wilson, Roosevelt maneuvered behind the scenes in another failed bid for the Republican nomination. Turned down by Wilson in his request to raise troops and take them to France, TR helped his four sons realize their wish to serve, then pressured Washington to speed up the war effort. His youngest son was killed on Bastille Day, 1918. Theodore Roosevelt died six months later. His last written words were a reminder to himself to see the chairman of the Republican Party.

FROM THE CRITICS

Janet Maslin - The New York Times

Roosevelt's devotion to his family emerges most clearly in the last part of the book, which describes his children's patriotic activities during World War I. The patriarch's frustration at being sidelined during such critical times is just one more in the string of indignities that befell him after his presidency. But Roosevelt's fighting spirit is captured in all its indefatigability here. To think of him as a failure in these later years, Ms. O'Toole writes, "would be to miss the point of the man."

Publishers Weekly

Numerous books-most notably Joseph L. Gardner's classic Departing Glory: Theodore Roosevelt as Ex-President-have addressed TR's 10 years of postpresidential life (1909-1919), which will also be the focus of the final installment in Edmund Morris's monumental three-volume biography. While coming up with little in the way of news, O'Toole (The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends) is straightforward and accurate, satisfactorily narrating the well-worn facts of TR's growing dissatisfaction with his hand-chosen successor, William Howard Taft; his own failed bid to return to the White House as a progressive candidate in 1912, and his nearly fatal 1914 exploration of Brazil's River of Doubt. Equally workmanlike is O'Toole's sketching of TR's clashes with the Wilson administration and the drama of his sending four sons off to war (three returned). It's in her consideration of the 50-year-old TR's safari through British East Africa in 1909 that O'Toole takes her narrative beyond earlier accounts via access to the previously unavailable papers of Sir Alfred Pease, TR's host for a significant slice of time in today's Kenya. One wishes she'd expanded her consideration of TR's adventures with Pease and others and made this into a more vivid and interesting book than this one. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Elaine Markson. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Like an athlete unable to quit the sport that brought fame and self-fulfillment, Theodore Roosevelt found his return to private life after the presidency a disaster for him, his family, and the Republican Party. His two greatest errors were renouncing another presidential bid after completing McKinley's second term and then winning the 1904 election on his own and his running as a third-party candidate in 1912, which split the Republican Party and delivered the presidency to Woodrow Wilson. O'Toole (The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and Friends) adeptly revisits this story, uncovering previously unexploited material and presenting a fuller and more sympathetic account. O'Toole presents Roosevelt as that rare individual who fulfilled himself through the political arena, finding that life without political power made him feel useless. She makes a convincing argument that TR's attacks on the Wilson administration during World War I were both merited and ultimately vindicated. While this story has been told before (see, e.g., Joseph L. Gardner's Departing Glory), O'Toole has written the definitive account of TR's postpresidential years. TR's broad popularity as a subject, the centennial of his presidency, and the accessibility of the author's writing make this an essential purchase for general and academic collections.-William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews