May 1, 2022
Author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Nixon and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Clarence Darrow, Farrell has closely watched Ted Kennedy for years and here offers a hefty biography.
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Starred review from August 29, 2022
Biographer Farrell (Richard Nixon: The Life) untangles in this masterful account the complex blend of political dexterity, recklessness, and unflagging support of the less fortunate that defined Ted Kennedy’s rise from overlooked youngest son of a political dynasty to “Lion of the Senate.” According to Farrell, Kennedy grew up “awed by the achievements of his father and brothers and vexed by self-doubt.” Only 30 years old when he took his brother John’s former seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962, Kennedy remained in that role until his death in 2009, fighting in his final months for the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Kennedy took early stands on civil rights, Farrell writes, but came into his own after the tragic assassinations of his older brothers. Farrell’s evenhanded account documents Kennedy’s “craven” behavior following the car crash on Chappaquiddick Island that left Mary Jo Kopechne dead, but gives equal weight to his accomplishments as an anti-apartheid advocate, an early champion of gay rights and AIDS funding, and a crusader for healthcare reform. The book shines in its vivid accounts of backroom political dealmaking, as Farrell enlivens his exhaustive research and expert analysis with a novelist’s pacing. The result is the definitive one-volume biography of a consequential American lawmaker.
Starred review from September 1, 2022
Farrell delivers a comprehensive biography of the late senator. Ted Kennedy (1932-2009), writes biographer and former White House correspondent Farrell, was "a warm, playful human being who loved dogs, good times, song, and devilry." As a young man, he was health-conscious, abstemious, and a hard worker, though the least of a family deeply embedded in politics. His habits and mindset changed after the assassination of his brothers John and Bobby, when, as one family friend put it, "Much against his will...[Ted] was suddenly the head of this extraordinary family, a position he never aspired to and never expected." He bore that burden by womanizing and drinking, which became a troublesome hallmark. His political career was not always successful. Working on JFK's presidential campaign, he found himself in above his head, and the Denver Post blamed him for Kennedy's loss in Colorado. During that time, though married, he tried to seduce a woman named Judith Campbell only to be bested in the effort by JFK, who "reveled...at having beaten Teddy to the prize." His first run for public office stirred up outrage among some for the offense of "trading on his brother's name." Yet, in his decades in the Senate, he forged working alliances on both sides of the aisle and helped craft significant legislation--e.g., the foundations of the Affordable Care Act. Farrell looks closely at some little-known aspects of Kennedy's career, including his refusal to run as Hubert Humphrey's vice president in 1968, which, Farrell suggests, might have enhanced Kennedy's role as a national candidate and certainly would have changed the course of history. As this lengthy but engrossing narrative reveals, Kennedy, whom Senate colleague Alan Simpson called "one of the orneriest sons of bitches around," got plenty done, including adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. An exemplary study of a life of public service with more than its share of tragedies and controversies.
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Starred review from September 1, 2022
One of his brothers was president, another wanted to be. The deaths of John and Robert Kennedy bestowed a mantle upon their youngest brother that was often too heavy to bear. Ted was never sure he wanted to be president, but he felt it was incumbent upon him to try. When campaign after campaign failed due to circumstances both beyond and within his control, Kennedy settled into the office he held longer than all but three other U.S. senators in the nation's history. As a senator from Massachusetts for 46 years, Kennedy proved to be that now rarest of all legislators, someone who would work across party lines in service to causes in which he fervently believed. Kennedy's deal-making alacrity resulted in the enactment of beneficial laws that are today, in a time in which devotion to the common good seems quaint, under real threat. With hundreds of books published about the Kennedy dynasty, it may seem that there is nothing new to be learned, yet Farrell's focused and canny research produced a fresh, multifaceted portrait of a man conflicted by history, stalked by demons, and dedicated to ideals. Equitable and discerning, Farrell's nuanced biography is a valuable addition to the Kennedy canon.
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