Customer Reviews

The Last Brother : The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I began my reading of this book with a sense of lessened expectations due to the poor reviews McGinniss had received from its release. While moving on I found myself relating rather easily to the stylistic approach he used. Any frequent reader of the Kennedy's knows how difficult it is for authors to obtain any amount of information concerning the "mythical" family. I would find it hard to believe that Joe McGinnis would be the first Kennedy author to take liberties in interpretation of certain aspects. The book my be an even better read if the authors note is read first, as to create an understanding of the approach McGinniss took in this project. While nowhere near the best of Kennedy books it certainly is one that all Kennedy fans should find interesting and insightful.

I read this book several years ago and loved it. I could not put it down once I started reading it. Author Joe McGinness admits that there are parts of the book where he is writing from the viewpoint of Ted Kennedy, even though he could not get a lot of direct information from him, but I did not hold that against him when I read this book. I learned a lot about the Kennedy family that I was not previously aware of before I read this book.

This is by no means a complete biography of Edward Kennedy. Though the book was written in 1993, it cuts off just after Chappaquiddick.

Rather, it is a biography of the Kennedy family with stress on Joe, Robert John and especially Ed.

I really liked the way the author spells out the internal and external conflicts within each of the brothers. And while his stories of Ed Kennedy are quite lurid, he also makes you feel sorry for the man. That is an extraordinary bit of writing and makes the book a great read.

This excellent book describes how Joe Kennedy caused the good, and bad,things which happened to his family. There are stunning stories of his decision to have brain surgury on his retarded daughter (perhaps because he had molested her and did not want her to tell) and of his promise to the mafia to get Cuba, and its gambling profits back for the mafia in exchange for getting JKF elected (they did their part, he didn't, and MAYBE that's why JFK was killed.

I picked this book up off my shelf after Senator Kennedy's death, and was unable to put it down. McGinniss writes not a straight biography, but rather a narrative reflection on the wider Kennedy family, with special attention to their flaws. There are glaring questions about how the author knows the things he relates, the intimate thoughts and feelings and motives of the "characters," especially since he begins by noting how little Ted Kennedy ever revealed about his own personal life. Yet this book makes for a mesmerizing read, and gets to the heart of the Kennedy mystique and our fascination with them as cultural icons. It offers compelling insights into what it MIGHT feel like to be the "last" Kennedy brother, the one on the outside, the after thought to the dynasty. The facts and interpretations may be questionable, but, like an Oliver Stone film, this book offers a re-interpretation of history with attention to the human element, and how flawed human beings get caught up in, and changed by, history.

This is a great fast reading book about the Kennedys. It gives great insight to a very disfunctional family and also, in some ways to those that were victims of the parents. Beside the family and their ways, the book shows you more than anything the corruption in our politics.Joe McGinnis has done a great job of putting together the facts as told to him with some logical progression. We the people however, let corruption contimue. That is of course my opinion. I also believe we are brainwashed by the media on a daily basis and have been for a long time. Enjoy reading!

It seems people blow simple things out of proportion when it comes to a book about a powerful political figure. In the book when Senator Kennedy had to borrow JFK's suit to wear for the funeral of his brother. Since Ted Kennedy is too large for the suit, the author writes "Ted descended down the steps, no doubt praying the pants would not rip." How this can be interpreted into "makings things up out of whole cloth" I have no clue. This is just the author's way of describing Ted's want and need to fill in his brother's shoe's, and his fear that he couldn't live up to it. And when an author describes a true life event that happens to be written about in another book can be considered plageurism?

Well being a Kennedy, I guess he can have anything made from hay to gold.

Don't believe everything you read in Vanity Fair.

Joe McGinniss once was a good author. At the age of 25, he wrote "The Selling of the President, 1968," which has since become a classic, read in political science classes across the country. Then something happened. He couldn't live up to the expectations others had of him. His next book, "Heroes" parallels the breakdown of his personal life with his growing disenchantment with his heroes from the 60's. He concludes that book with the notion that the only figure he examined who came close to being a genuine "hero" was Ted Kennedy, and that Kennedy would be the subject of his next book. He wasn't. Instead, McGinniss left politics and started writing true crime stories. He was fairly successful in that genre, but returns to politics with "The Last Brother," the long awaited biography of Ted Kennedy. Amazingly, transparently, the whole point of this book is that Kennedy couldn't live up to people's expectations of him and became self-destructive as a result. The book essentially ends with Chappaquiddick, which happened in 1969, the same year "The Selling of the President" was published. But while that book may be been the culmination of its author's life, Chappaquiddick was only one story in Ted Kennedy's. Kennedy has been the most influential senator of the last 100 years and has had his greatest impact on the course of American history in the years since 1969. All that is only touched on by McGinniss, who is more concerned with using Kennedy as a stand-in for himself, and probably his whole generation. "Heroes" does it better, but Adam Clymer's new biography of Kennedy is far superior if you want to read about the senator.

When are you going to learn Joe McGinness? Start labeling your books fiction because most of them are. I would advise people not to even waste thier money on this fiction book.

This book is terrible. It is not journalism. It is not fiction. It is the worst of both.