An impressively intelligent and buoyantly written novel.
A fictionalized diary of real-life socialite Kathleen Agnes Kennedy (1920-1948) offers her thoughts on family, geopolitics, and love.
The narrator, nicknamed “Kick,” is born into extraordinary wealth and privilege as part of the Kennedy family. In this depiction, she’s shown to be a precocious observer of human affairs from an early age. When her father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., is appointed ambassador to Great Britain, she moves with him to London and rubs shoulders with the likes of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, and the British royal family. Her dad, however, is an “outspoken anti-Semite” who tries to convince Jewish, anti-Nazi Hollywood producers that gentile Americans would blame Jewish people for dragging the country into a bloody conflict abroad. He also gullibly believes Adolf Hitler’s empty promises of peace and is a political adversary of both Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who furtively collaborate to bring the United States into the war. Kick has no illusions about Hitler’s dangerousness: “Hitler tests my faith in a just God,” she writes. She falls in love with Billy Cavendish, the “heir to the richest duchy in England,” but their relationship is vigorously opposed by both families on religious grounds—his family is Anglican and hers, Catholic. When Billy dies in the war, Kick is crushed by despair, although she eventually falls in love again, with handsome and charming British noble Peter Fitzwilliam. Throughout this account, Braudy (Family Circle, 2004, etc.) deftly captures her subject’s lacerating wit and charming forthrightness. After her wedding night, for instance, Kick writes, “Needless to say, certain things can only improve. It is the most important night of my life.” The author also ably chronicles Kick’s work for American spy chief Gen. “Wild Bill” Donovan, who asked her to keep tabs on and distribute “fake gossip” to “commie sympathizers” in England. Overall, Braudy portrays her as a remarkably accomplished and daring woman, especially for the age. Kick also works as an editor and writer for the Washington Times-Herald, and readers can see, in her diary, the pithy humor, gimlet-eyed observation, and authorial concision that make up good journalistic writing as well as her confidence in espousing heterodox views. Braudy also provides what feels like an intimate look at the intramural squabbles and tensions of the Kennedy family; of particular interest is Kick’s devotion to her father despite his considerable character flaws, including incorrigible philandering, tyrannical impulses, parochial closed-mindedness, and mercurial anger: “How can I love Daddy and hate so much of what he says? Brother Johnny says it’s his Irish charm.” Further, the author poignantly shows Kick’s close, tender relationship with her aforementioned brother, future president John F. Kennedy, which included a shared political ideology. The anguish that Kick experiences when John’s life is imperiled during his military service is palpable. Braudy does a marvelous job of making readers feel as if they’re witnessing a confession that’s never seen the light of day—as if they’re truly stumbling upon a secret.
An impressively intelligent and buoyantly written novel.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-692-16707-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Blanche Wolf Publishers
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
