Jeff Shesol’s Mercury Rising highlights this fragility in a refreshing narrative that captures the sometimes dispiriting realities of America’s debut in space ... In the end, Shesol argues, Kennedy embraced a dramatically expanded space program not out of genuine conviction of its value so much as a desire to bolster national prestige at a time when many Americans believed the Soviets held the upper hand in the Cold War ... An expert on presidential oratory and a onetime White House speechwriter for Bill Clinton, Shesol is the author of well-regarded histories of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 plan to expand the Supreme Court and Lyndon Johnson’s bitter relationship with Bobby Kennedy. Yet Mercury Rising is at least as successful when it departs the White House and zeros in on the other, less familiar man at the center of the story, John Glenn. Shesol dutifully relates the arc of Glenn’s life ... Mercury Rising relates such details, not to mention the blow-by-blow of Glenn’s three orbits around the Earth, with verve, revealing Shesol’s extraordinary talent as a storyteller. The only downside is that Shesol rarely breaks from his rollicking narrative to lay out the larger context or to engage the big questions his story poses ... Yet Shesol’s story raises inescapable questions about whether space exploration is quite what its enthusiasts have often claimed.
In this dramatic account, Shesol (Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court) tells the story of the first manned American spaceflight into orbit. In the introduction, Shesol skillfully sets the scene, describing an anxious nation that watched as John Glenn prepared to launch aboard the spacecraft Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962 ... This well-researched and exciting read is recommended for those interested in the history of the space race or the Cold War.
Shesol chronicles the early days of the space program with a historian’s attention to detail and a novelist’s flair for interesting storytelling ... The story of how (and why) NASA so quickly got its act together is fascinating, as is the parallel story of the original seven Mercury astronauts, especially John Glenn, who were considered virtual superheroes at the time. The success of Glenn’s mission, to riotous acclaim for the agency but especially for the man, kick-started America’s space program into high gear and set it on the path to the moon
In Mercury Rising Jeff Shesol [...] provides a splendid account of Glenn's mission. Shesol sets America's space program in the context of the Cold War. Drawing on interviews and Glenn's personal notes, he includes a fascinating portrait of the astronaut who became a national icon.
Today, when everyone knows that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are financing private space missions, but few can name any of the more than 200 astronauts who have lived on the International Space Station, it can be hard to explain the excitement and awe that 1962 mission aroused in Americans of all stripes, as well as people the world over. It seems like a story from a simpler and altogether less-jaded time — a time Jeff Shesol captures in Mercury Rising, which brings Glenn’s story alive again with both nostalgia and a riveting, fast-paced narrative that has 'movie' written all over it ... Shesol does a marvelous job of documenting Glenn’s steady rise ... While Mercury Rising captures the sense of energy and possibility in America’s Cold War space program, and ably explores what the New York Times once called Glenn’s 'prickly sense of integrity,' there’s still a need for a definitive biography of America’s first true space hero.
A gripping, exhaustively detailed chronicle of America’s initial sprint in the space race seen through the eyes of the first American to orbit the Earth ... The author makes a compelling case that Glenn was a central figure in this transition, noting how his combination of arrogance, drive, and down-home folksiness made him a 'flesh-and-blood' example of American ideals. Though Shesol could have tightened the narrative by shaving around 100 pages, this is a welcome retelling of a significant piece of the Cold War saga and the opening of the space frontier. A good choice for readers interested in the Cold War, the space race, and the 1960s American political landscape.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
