Kate Clifford Larson uses newly uncovered sources to bring the story of Rosemary Kennedy—the beautifully but intellectually disabled sibling of John, Bobby and Ted—to light.
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.
