The author’s pace is methodical, and her just-the-facts approach occasionally becomes tedious, but she succeeds in providing a well-rounded portrait of a woman who, until now, has never been viewed in full.
Many of Larson’s best anecdotes and quotations are mined from previous books...But she has amplified this well-told tale with newly released material from the John F. Kennedy Library and a few interviews. By making Rosemary the central character, she has produced a valuable account of a mental health tragedy, and an influential family’s belated efforts to make amends.
What begins as a fairly straightforward chronological account of the Kennedy family history quickly becomes something much more personal and compelling, the tale of a young woman whose increasingly volatile behavior became a liability to her politically ambitious father.
