Books About the Kennedys

John A. Farrell’s biography of Edward M. Kennedy is the first single-volume biography of the great figure since his death. Farrell’s long acquaintance with the Kennedy uni­verse and the acclaim accorded his previous books helped garner him access to a remarkable range of new sources, including segments of Kennedy’s personal diary and his private confessions to members of his family in the days that followed the accident on Chappaquiddick. As the fourth son of the close-knit but fiercely competitive Kennedy clan, Ted was the runt of the litter. Expelled from Harvard University for cheating, he was a fun-loving playboy who nevertheless served his brothers loyally and effectively. It was easy to take Ted lightly, and many did. But when he was elected to the United States Senate at the age of thirty to fill his brother Jack’s seat, something unexpected happened: He found his home and his calling there. Over time, Ted Kennedy would build arguably the most significant senatorial career in American history. John A. Farrell brings us the man as he was, in strength and weakness, his profound but complicated inheritance, and his vital legacy, as only a great biographer can do.

History remembers RFK as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy’s enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that began with his service as counsel to the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to capture the full arc of his subject’s life. Tye draws on unpublished memoirs, unreleased government files, and 58 boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for forty years. He conducted hundreds of interviews with RFK intimates, many of whom have never spoken publicly, including Bobby’s widow, Ethel, and his sister, Jean. Tye’s determination to sift through the tangle of often contradictory opinions means that Bobby Kennedy will stand as the definitive biography about the most complex and controversial member of the Kennedy family.

Hersh was acquainted with Kennedy since his college days, and this unique series of revelations serves to reinterpret the senator’s public and private personas. Conditioned by deep-seated fears that he was an afterthought within his own powerful family, Kennedy developed a genius for conciliation and strategizing that made him a dramatically more effective political figure than either of his older brothers. In addition to this biography’s account of the Chappaquiddick incident, Hersh also delivers the first full report of the vendetta between Kennedy and Richard Nixon, exposing the behind-the-scenes manipulations to which Kennedy resorted to drive Nixon from office during the Watergate scandal.

Joseph P. Kennedy’s reputation as a savvy businessman, diplomat, and sly political patriarch is well-documented. But his years as a Hollywood mogul have never been fully explored until now. In Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, Cari Beauchamp brilliantly explores this unknown chapter in Kennedy’s biography. Between 1926 and 1930, Kennedy positioned himself as a major Hollywood player. In two short years, he was running three studios simultaneously, and then, in a bold move, he merged his studios with David Sarnoff to form the legendary RKO Studio. Beauchamp also tells the story of Kennedy’s affair with Gloria Swanson, how he masterminded the mergers that created the blueprint for contemporary Hollywood, and made the fortune that became the foundation of his empire.

On May 5, 2006, the New York Times ran two stories: “Patrick Kennedy Crashes Car into Capitol Barrier” and then, several hours later, “Patrick Kennedy Says He’ll Seek Help for Addiction.” It was the first time that the popular Rhode Island congressman had publicly disclosed his addiction to prescription painkillers, the true extent of his struggle with bipolar disorder, and his plan to immediately seek treatment. That could have been the end of his career, but instead it was the beginning. Since then, Kennedy has become the nation’s leading advocate for mental health and substance abuse care, research, and policy both in and out of Congress. A Common Struggle weaves together Kennedy’s private and professional narratives, echoing Kennedy’s philosophy that for him, the personal is political and the political personal. Focusing on the years from his “coming out” about suffering from bipolar disorder and addiction to the present day, the book examines Kennedy’s journey toward recovery and reflects on Americans’ propensity to treat mental illnesses as “family secrets.”

More than 60 years after his assassination, President John F. Kennedy’s legend endures. Noted author and historian Thurston Clarke reexamines the last months of the president’s life to show a man in the midst of great change, both in his family and in the key issues of his day: The Cold War, civil rights, and Vietnam, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise. JFK’s Last Hundred Days presents a gripping account that weaves together Kennedy’s public and private lives, explains why the grief following his assassination has endured so long, and solves the most tantalizing Kennedy mystery of them all — not who killed him but who he was when he was killed and where he would have led us.

Following Patrick J. Kennedy’s bestselling memoir, A Common Struggle, he teams up again with A Common Struggle coauthor, award-winning healthcare journalist Stephen Fried, to craft this powerful new book sharing the untold stories of others — a special group who agreed to talk about their illnesses, treatments, and struggles for the first time. In this book, you’ll meet people of all ages, backgrounds, and futures, across politics and government, Hollywood and the arts, tech and business, sports and science — some recovering, some relapsing, some just barely holding on, but all sharing experiences and insights we need to better understand. You’ll also meet those trying to help them through — parents, siblings, spouses, therapists, bosses, doctors, and friends who create the extended families needed to support care and wellness. The personal stories they share with Kennedy and Fried are intimate, sometimes shocking, always revealing. And they are essential reading for caregivers, family members, policymakers, and the general public — just as they are for those who often feel alone in experiencing these challenges themselves.

The Hidden History of JFK Assassination draws on exclusive interviews with more than two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy, in addition to former FBI, Secret Service, military intelligence, and Congressional personnel, who provided critical first–hand information. The book also uses government files — including the detailed FBI confession of notorious Mafia godfather Carlos Marcello — to simply and clearly reveal who killed JFK. Using information never published before, the book uses Marcello’s own words to his closest associates to describe the plot. His confession is also backed up by a wealth of independent documentation. However, it also draws on exclusive files and information not available to Congress, which have only emerged in recent years, to fully explain for the first time how Marcello and Trafficante committed — and got away with — the crime of the 20th century.

A narrative of Kennedy’s quest to create a speech that would distill American dreams and empower a new generation, Ask Not is a beautifully detailed account of the inauguration and the weeks preceding it. During a time when America was divided and its citizens torn by fears of war, John F. Kennedy took office and sought to do more than just reassure the American people. His speech marked the start of a brief, optimistic era. Thurston Clarke’s portrait of JFK is balanced, revealing the president at his most dazzlingly charismatic and cunningly pragmatic.

When Christina Haag was growing up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep school friends, a skinny kid who lived with his mother and sister on Fifth Avenue and who happened to have a Secret Service detail following him discreetly at all times. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair. Glamorous and often in the public eye, but also passionate and deeply intimate, their relationship was transformative for both of them. Exquisitely written, Come to the Edge is an elegy to first love, a lost New York, and a young man with an enormous capacity for tenderness and an adventurous spirit, who led his life with surprising and abundant grace.