Sunday Books & Culture
Kostya Kennedy takes readers for a ride from Boston west with Paul Revere, and in the process tells a better story.
The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
Reviewed by Martin Davis
The challenge in writing the history of well-known characters and events is confronting the preconceived notions of the readers. There are two main paths to confronting the challenge — reach a conclusion that challenges what we think we know (see the classic reinterpretation of the end of Roman influence in Europe “Mohammad and Charlemagne”) or simply tell a better story.
The Ride is a better story.
Author Kostya Kennedy is best known for his books about American sports heroes Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, and Pete Rose, challenging figures in their own right — every baseball fan knows these names and thinks they know their stories. Consider these successful books were simply prelude to The Ride.
What if the militiamen had not been waiting at the Lexington Green at dawn on that April day in 1775, to test and slow the British? What if they had not then been at Concord a few hours later, 220 strong, ready and resolute on the high ground?
The answer? The American Revolution may have ended outside Boston that early Spring day.
Revere stood for a moment on the muddy ground, the Old North Church tall across the river before him, the mare, Brown Beauty, shifting on her hooves. Revere understood that for himself and for the others who might ride on this night … this was the most important horseback ride of his life. The Regulars were out. The Royal Army was on the move.
The cadence of these lines is that of the ride itself, staccato clauses, pounding the reader’s memory, pushing him on to the next clause, and the next, as Revere himself pushed himself forward 250 years ago this year.
From bell ringer in the Old North Church during his youth, to the social network that was Boston in the third quarter of the 18th century; from the Somerset anchored in Boston Harbor and other ships of war from New Hampshire to Virginia, to the many rides that Revere made throughout his life — rides that prepared him for April 18, 1775 — the story carries readers along, infusing new passion into an oft-told tale while sprinkling tidbits that will be new to most readers.
It was Revere, for example, who identified the remains of Joseph Warren who lay dead on the battled field of Bunker Hill two months after the midnight ride. Revere identified Warren’s body by the false teeth Revere himself had placed in his mouth.
And it was Revere who in December 1774 made another ride, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to warn the patriots that the British were on the move to re-enforce Fort William and Mary. The patriots captured the fort, and its munitions which were later used to defeat the British at Bunker Hill.
At a time when Americans’ grasp of the nation’s history is woefully lacking, due in no small measure to the insulting way that K-12 teachers are forced to teach history — as a game of high-stakes Trivial Pursuit, as opposed to what it is, human drama — Kennedy’s book is a welcome gallop through a pivotal moment in the birth of the nation.
Simply put, Kennedy delivers a better story.
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