Customer Reviews

Paul Fusco: RFK

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I was 14 when RFK was assassinated. Despite the fact I'm French and was living in Paris, I had followed all RFK's campaign since his announcement on March 16th, 1968. I had had grief after the Oregon primary, lost to Sen. Eugene McCarthy, yet high expectations for the California primary and of course the next stages. "Bobby" was the hope of a whole generation. There are no words to tell the unspeakable but he was a very respected man, one who could go everywhere in the U.S., including in Black ghettos and Indian reservations, thrilling audiences, moving people forward. Fusco's book successfully reports on the tragedy and trauma of RFK's assassination. Hundreds of thousands of people stood quietly, hand to heart, in the heat of that Spring to pay their respects to "a president who never was". It was one of those rare instances when a nation - and actually people from the whole world - comes together, when individuals from all horizons and backgrounds shared a respect for a leader whom, they believed, could have reconciled the whole country and put it back on track.

This is a profoundly moving book. Each photo is a revelation. I've never looked at individual photographs so long or seen so much in my life. A real experience.

These images resonate. Sadness and hope were two emotions I felt while examining the photos. Very well done and effective in capture the time and emotion of the nation following the assassination.

Of course, this is one of those cases where the subject of the book comes with all sorts preconceived notions, but the photography in this book will make you feel the loss and respect these people felt as if you were actually there. Excellent documentary photography.

This book is beautiful, very sad and also full of hope.
It is a wonderful tribute to Bob Kennedy.
A must!

RFK, by Paul Fusco (224 pgs., 1968, 1969, 2000, 2008). This is an incredibly moving, tear-inducing, very large coffee table sized photography book. Along with those photographs it contains a very moving tribute to Bobby Kennedy by his then sole surviving brother, Sen. Teddy Kennedy. It also contains very evocative essays by Norman Mailer, Evan Thomas & Vicki Goldberg.
The year of 2008 was the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Senator Bobby Kennedy by the despicable non-human animal whose name will not pass my lips nor be written or typed by my fingers. May his name be erased from history. Sadly, he will always remain a footnote in history. Killers become famous merely for killing. That is one sad statement.
Fusco was asked to go through his photo files again for this anniversary & he came up with many never before published photos; especially of the people along the route of the funeral train carrying Bobby's body from NYC to Arlington Cemetery. The family photos of some of the Kennedy clan kneeling in grief inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC, were gut wrenching. Seeing a young Caroline & an even younger John, Jr., next to their Mom with such sad faces, just a mere five years after the assassination of their own father, is heartbreaking. The close ups of bystanders along the train route, saying their last goodbyes to Bobby are equally heart rending. Again, these photos illustrate how Bobby was the last major political figure to unite so many disparate elements in American society. His support cut across all racial & ethnic lines, all economic strata, all religious groups & even political divides which now seem set in stone. We are so much the worse because of his loss.

All Pictures of R.F.K.'s last journey and the American people turning out
to say goodbye to a good guy.

Received today 2/11/2010 in excellent condition. Well worth the money and the wait for it to be delivered.

This is a stunning book that takes the reader back to a time when America was suffering from the loss of a great leader. It is amazing to see what a profound impact Bobby Kennedy had on the American people and how much they loved him back. If he could have seen all these people lined up along the train tracks on the day of his funeral, then he would have known that all his hard work with his presidential campaign was worth it and I have a feeling that he would have won the presidency if he had lived.

I came to this book via David Rowell's The Train of Small Mercies, which Rowell says was inspired by Fusco's photographs (taken in 1968 on assignment for Look Magazine) of the crowds lining the train route carrying Robert F. Kennedy's family and remains from his funeral in NYC to his burial in Washington DC.

This is the latest collection of those photographs, some of which are blurred literally by the train's motion, most of which are profoundly moving, emotionally -- the abject shock on faces, the surprising mix of ages, the races standing elbow to elbow. They *are* inspiring, in their hint of outside lives and their riveting attention to the moment of RFK and country. The book also features Ted Kennedy's eulogy of his brother and several essays, including Norman Mailer bargaining with God in "The Promise," excerpted from The Time of Our Time.