The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

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This book is well-written with short and well-structured chapters. The Kennedy’s are a vibrant and lively bunch – but ultimately sad and harrowing. A few years before the late great Ted Kennedy passed, Senator Kennedy approached David Nasaw and asked him to write a biography of his father Joseph P. Kennedy. Nasaw said he would on

NASAW: He was very important in the campaign, but more than that, he exaggerated his importance in the press so that he was mentioned, prominently, after the election was won, as a future Cabinet position, as one of the insiders. The truth was that he had connections, which the Democrats didn't have and Roosevelt didn't have. The audiobook is narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner. He uses a distinct East Coast dialect for all Kennedy quotes, and there are many - from diaries, letters and speeches. The quotes, hearing exactly what Joseph said and how he expressed himself, reveal much about his character. In the beginning I found the intonation annoying, but it does make it easy to follow conversations because you know who is saying what. However, the same inflection was used for all the Kennedys. I liked the narration a lot. It was easy to follow.After six years of interviews and poring through Kennedy family letters, unpublished diaries, diplomatic dispatches, and other sources, Nasaw lays out his discoveries in clear, careful prose. What emerges is a portrait of a man who dreamt big and dared greatly, but sometimes stumbled badly. NASAW: He would work himself into a, you know, into absolute physical exhaustion and then have to take long vacations. And he loved nothing better than having one or two or three or four of the kids come to see him in the south of France or in Palm Beach when he was there. His greatest moments and his greatest happiness was at Hyannis Port when he was surrounded by all of them and they loved, respected and admired him. At times I found the author too fawning on his subject, but he does provide enough details to allow us our own evaluations. Even though the author states that Kennedy was a “good father” he was absent much of the time. I found the relationship between Kennedy and his wife, Rose, an enigma; he was covertly and not so covertly carrying on relationships with several women – like the actress Gloria Swanson and Clare Booth Luce (wife of Time/Life editor Henry Luce). Rose just seemed to take this all in stride – like she was wearing blinkers – constantly referring to her husband in the most glowing of terms.

And he says to the industry, and he says it over and over and over again, he says it in the trade press, he says it in private, he says it in public: You guys need me, a Boston banker who's not a Jew, as the face of the industry, because you're going to be in trouble. You're already in trouble. DAVIES: We're speaking with David Nasaw. His new book about Joseph Kennedy is called "The Patriarch." DAVIES: Right. He became a great friend and defender of Neville Chamberlain who, of course, condemned in many historical accounts as the guy who foolishly tried to appease Hitler rather than standing up to him. Tell us what motivated Kennedy's view on this. The story of the Kennedy family has been told over and over again, and of course plays a central role in this biography. Despite his infidelities, Kennedy appears to have loved his wife, Rose, and adored his children. His marriage was odd, to say the least -- the couple spent little time together -- but both parties to the deal seemed to have been content. Moving is the account of what happened to Rosemary, the Kennedy's mildly retarded daughter, who fell victim to medical science and her father's attempt to help her. DAVIES: Did he give Roosevelt credibility with, you know, the elite financiers and industrialists of the country, that he needed?

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Apparently he was disgusted that his son won the election by such a narrow margin, and again rants and raves at all of those that he feels were responsible. David George Nasaw was born on July 18, 1945, in Cortland, New York, the oldest son of lawyer Joshua Nasaw (1909–1970) and Beatrice Kaplan (1917–2010), an elementary school teacher. [4] Nasaw is the older brother of Jonathan Lewis Nasaw (b. August 26, 1947), [5] the prolific author of at least nine thrillers; [6] [7] [8] and Elizabeth Perl Nasaw (May 29, 1956 – February 28, 2004), [9] who as "Elizabeth Was" (later "Liz Was" and finally "Lyx Ish") was a poet and publisher of avant-garde magazines, [4] [10] and the cofounder of Xexoxial Editions and Dreamtime Village in West Lima, Wisconsin. [11] [12] David Nasaw (born July 18, 1945) is an American author, biographer and historian who specializes in the cultural, social and business history of early 20th Century America. [2] Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Professor of History. [3]

In this pioneering new work, celebrated historian David Nasaw examines the life of Joseph P. Kennedy, the founder of the twentieth century’s most famous political dynasty. Drawing on never-before-published materials from archives on three continents and interviews with Kennedy family members and friends, Nasaw tells the story of a man who participated in the major events of his times: the booms and busts, the Depression and the New Deal, two world wars and the Cold War, and the birth of the New Frontier. In studying Kennedy’s life, we relive the history of the American century. He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. DAVID NASAW: He was very well-known. His - he happened to be extraordinarily photogenic. He had nine photogenic children. He loved to hobnob with the press. He was a walking soundbite, he'd give them whatever they wanted. So he was plastered all over the place. Everybody knew who this man was from, you know, 1932, when he helped campaign - when he campaigned for Roosevelt, for the rest of his life.Although the book (like most biographies) is told in a linear narrative, I felt at many times I was reading multiple biographies. There’s Kennedy the astute successful businessmen, Kennedy the Hollywood producer, Kennedy the ambassador to England, and Kennedy, the father to the famous JFK. Through all of these episodes, we’re constantly also kept in the loop with wife Rose and his nine children. There’s just enough ‘family’ here to keep the reader familiar with all of their comings and goings, but the majority of the focus is on Kennedy’s many different endeavors throughout his lifetime. I enjoyed listening to this through to the end. It kept my attention and gives an in-depth portrait of Joseph P. Kennedy's personality, which is what I am looking for in a biography.