ROSE KENNEDY

The definitive biography of Rose Kennedy, which peels away layers of public imagery to reveal the matriarch who became a political legend.

Barbara Perry finally captures Rose Kennedy’s genuine contributions to her family’s political dynasty. Mining newly released diaries and letters, Perry trains her eye on traits that other biographers have neglected. Rose’s perfectionism, initially a response to the strictures imposed by gender, class, and religion, ultimately created a family image that resonated in the political arena and new twentieth-century media. An extroverted socialite at her husband’s side in prewar London, she became an effective campaigner at home, reaching voters that Jack, Bobby, and Teddy could not. For the first time, we see a complete portrait of Rose that adds depth and dimension to her legend. A stoic, devout presence in public, Rose sought solace from crushing personal tragedies in compulsive shopping, travel, and self-medication. Rose Kennedy is an unequaled book about a remarkable woman who nurtured an image that masked her family’s more inconvenient truths. Barbara A. Perry is a Senior Fellow in presidential oral history at the University of Virgina's Miller Center in Charlottesville. She is the author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier.