Hostage to fortune : the letters of Joseph P. Kennedy /

Libraries with active history collections will want this weighty collection of Joseph P. Kennedy's correspondence. Smith, Kennedy's granddaughter, had unrestricted access to the papers; in fact, she started with the 200 linear feet of (largely uncataloged) documents at Boston's JFK Library and then located many more boxes of letters and diaries in a New York office and a Long Island City warehouse. The selected letters cover the period from Joe Kennedy's 1914 marriage to his stroke in 1961. Smith includes the full text of the selected documents and adds related documents to lend context. Kennedy was not a self-revealing correspondent and became more careful in public correspondence as he became a celebrity and learned he could not control his image in the mass media. (Family letters are less self-protective.) As broker and motion picture producer, head of New Deal agencies and ambassador to the Court of St. James, and patriarch of a large, lively clan of future activists, Kennedy had an unusual perspective on twentieth-century history, a perspective well captured in this collection. --Mary Carroll

This volumeÄcovering the life of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. as a family man, businessman and ambassador to the Court of St. JamesÄdoes not limit itself to letters written by the progenitor of a political dynasty. It also includes much correspondence from his wife, Rose, and his children through nearly five decades (1914-1961), along with carefully chosen entries from his journals, which SmithÄa Kennedy granddaughterÄclaims preserves, as much as possible, an accurate account of the private and public man. The journals, like the letters, have up to now been embargoed by the family, and generally unavailable to scholars; therefore this volume is welcome. More discerning readers, however, aware of Kennedy's well-documented (by Richard Mahoney, Ron Kessler and others) business skulduggery, political opportunism, anti-Semitism and cowardice in the face of Nazism, will find that this collection offers a sanitized, whitewashed image. Smith allows Kennedy's blatantly untrue, disingenuous and self-serving statements to stand unchallenged. The journal accounts concerning meetings with FDR, for example, flatly disagree with the published records of other participants, not to mention with FDR's own secret Oval Office tapes. Still, for the record, these documents are worth having; for the reader familiar with the Kennedy literature, they do much to fill out a portrait of a fascinating clan and a fascinating man. (Jan.) Forecast: First serial rights have been sold to the New Yorker, and the book will be supported by a four-city author tour. There does seem to be an insatiable hunger for Kennedy books, but this one is not likely to have the kind of sales that Sarah Bradford's American Queen is enjoying. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Access to the private letters of Joseph P. Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Library has been restricted to all but a few authors; others have had to locate his letters among the papers of those with whom he corresponded. As noted by Smith, his granddaughter and a graduate student at Harvard, this situation has created an incomplete and unbalanced picture of the man. In editing this collection, she draws largely on material in the Kennedy libraryDexcept for some letters she herself uncovered in an abandoned garret on Long IslandDin an effort to create a more balanced picture of her grandfather. The result has significant strengths and weaknesses. For the first time, readers can see an orderly presentation of the words of one of the most enigmatic Kennedys as he operates largely behind the scenes and eventually sees his son rise to the presidency. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of these letters is the extent to which Joseph P. Kennedy's public and private lives were inextricably linked. Unfortunately, as in any collection of this sort, the editor's family ties have added insight but may have blinded her to opportunities a less subjective expert might have explored more effectively. Despite its shortcomings, this book will be a useful addition to all libraries with readers who want to know more about the Kennedy family. Since the Kennedy family seems intent on carefully guarding access to these papers, the sample here will be extremely useful to scholars.DCharles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Correspondence edited by a granddaughter, providing only intermittent insight into the Kennedy patriarch’s character. Joseph P. (1888–1969) remains the most intriguing Kennedy of all, the one who not only founded the family’s fortune, but established its political empire as well. His correspondence, unfortunately, does not illuminate the source of his dynamism. Like many men of action, Kennedy was not given to reflection; his letters mostly recount without analysis the familiar events of his busy life. The reader’s appetite for gossip likewise goes unsated; he left no written record of his romances. (Notes to Gloria Swanson, for example, are short or confined to business.) Nevertheless, aspects of his character do occasionally emerge. Especially interesting are his displays of pugnacity. At a Riviera dinner, when Lady Diana Cooper spoke slightingly of Kennedy’s friend Senator McCarthy, he demanded to know “what she had against him” and dismissed her response as “British pontification” and “poppycock.” His indignation at the barriers faced by Catholic Americans also reveals itself at important junctures. A sincere (if far from edifying) Catholic, he was disgusted when religion became an impediment to JFK’s presidential campaign, and he wrote to Lord Beaverbrook, “they have a hell of a nerve to be talking about freedom for the world when we have this kind of a condition right here in our own country,” adding, “it is more important than ever to fight this thing with everything we have.” Although he never paused to consider the matter, perhaps this “fight” was the mainspring of all Kennedy’s striving. Will weary all but the most zealous collectors of Kennedy arcana, yet offers sporadic rewards to the persevering. (28 b&w photos) First serial to the New Yorker; author tour