Books

Standard Of Review: I Pledge Only Partial Allegiance To Kermit Roosevelt's Novel 'Allegiance'

Allegiance is surely an enjoyable read for history buffs and those interested in the events leading up to the Korematsu and Endo decisions.

By  
on

Imagine my surprise when, in the middle of reading Kermit Roosevelt’s new World War II-era legal thriller Allegiance, the main character is told that “Kermit Roosevelt is dead.” For a brief second, I thought that Roosevelt — a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania — had pulled an Adaptation, inserting himself as a character in his own novel, before I realized, of course, that this line is actually referring to President Teddy Roosevelt’s son Kermit Roosevelt, who died in 1943, and is the author’s great grandfather. Such little historical nuggets are the strength of Allegiance, though ultimately the story and the characters suffer from a bloated plot.

The character that learns of Kermit Roosevelt’s untimely demise is the book’s protagonist, Caswell “Cash” Harrison, a scion of a blue-blooded Philadelphia family who graduates law school around the time that the United States enters World War II. Cash and his friends are filled with patriotic fervor, and are champing at the bit to enlist in the military to fight the Axis powers. However, Cash inexplicably fails his physical and is thus rejected from the military as medically unfit. Disappointed, Cash ends up with a fairly desirable fallback job clerking for Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, after one of Black’s clerks is suddenly drafted into the military.

Once he begins his clerkship with Justice Black, Cash realizes that strange things are afoot at the Supreme Court. Cash’s fellow clerk Gene Gressman suspects that someone has been pulling strings in order to ensure that certain clerks are drafted into the military. Gene’s theory is that certain businessmen are attempting to profit on Supreme Court decisions (i.e., by buying stock in companies that are the subject of Supreme Court cases) and are thus hoping to populate the Supreme Court with friendly clerks that can influence the Court. Cash begins to help Gene, but soon realizes that he may be in danger, as mysterious men begin to follow him.

The book depicts Cash’s entire clerkship, and then his subsequent job at the Department of Justice. At the DOJ, Cash helps to formulate the government’s briefs in the Japanese internment cases, including Korematsu v. United States and Ex Parte Endo. Cash tours the internment camps, and realizes that the U.S. has been lying in order to justify the evacuation and internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent. Moreover, Cash begins to suspect that the conspiracy to draft certain Supreme Court clerks might extend to internment as well.

Roosevelt has clearly done his research, and as a result, the numerous historical figures in the book (including Justice Black, Justice Felix Frankfurter, Attorney General Francis Biddle, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Solicitor General Charles Fahy) come alive. I only really know Justices Black and Frankfurter from reading their decisions in law school, so I enjoyed seeing them portrayed as real people. Justice Black is not exactly the hardest-working justice, as he routinely pressures Cash to stop all work and play tennis with him (funny that in this world, being forced to play tennis instead of reading a stack of cert petitions is considered to be a bad thing). Justice Frankfurter is a mastermind and puppet-master, and becomes Cash’s mentor in helping to snuff out the conspiracy.

I also enjoyed Allegiance’s many bits of Supreme Court clerk minutiae. For example, Roosevelt describes how Justice William O. Douglas’s clerks were reluctant to watch oral argument, lest Justice Douglas deem them not busy enough and give them additional work. As a result, Justice Douglas’s clerks hide behind the “Douglas column,” allowing them to view oral arguments unbeknownst to Justice Douglas. These little tidbits have little relation on the plot, but go a long way in making the time period feel like a lived-in world instead of an entry in a history book.

Roosevelt is less successful in depicting the book’s fictional characters. Cash does have some depth, as he begins to understand how his privileged upbringing opens doors that are unavailable to other clerks. However, the many, many secondary characters are less than fully formed and mostly merely serve as plot devices. This is particularly true with the two principal female characters, Cash’s fiancée Suzanne and Cash’s fellow clerk Clara Watson. Suzanne’s only purpose is to fill the buzzkill “girl back home” trope, disapproving of Cash’s various adventures in Washington, D.C., and hoping that he returns home so that they can wed. Watson starts off promising, as she is the only female clerk on the Court and is initially mistaken by Cash for a secretary. Nevertheless, Clara never reveals much depth; her defining character trait seems to be “constantly annoyed at Cash for various reasons.”

Sponsored

One of the reasons that the characters are so thin is that the plot is so sprawling and bloated. Cash initially clerks for Justice Black, and then takes a new job with the Department of Justice, and along the way takes long detours to the internment camps and to a court case in northern California. The true nature of the overarching conspiracy does not really cohere until the final pages; most of the book consists of odd occurrences without proper explanation of their place in the conspiracy. Roosevelt perhaps bit off more than he could chew; I wish that he had decided to tell a more streamlined story, such as a mystery only involving Cash’s time at the Supreme Court, eschewing the large chunk of the novel that takes place at the Department of Justice. That way, the mystery would have been tighter and Roosevelt would have been able to provide greater depth to every character.

Overall, despite these criticisms, Allegiance is surely an enjoyable read for history buffs and those interested in the events leading up to the Korematsu and Endo decisions. And better yet, the aforementioned Adaptation-esque moment in Allegiance got me thinking that in his next film, Nicolas Cage should play a 1940s-era Supreme Court clerk that creepily eats peaches, is afraid of being stung by bees, sports a mullet, and does whatever else Cage does in films.

(Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book.)

Allegiance [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Sponsored

Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

Topics

, , , ,