A HERO FOR OUR TIME: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years

by Ralph G. Martin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1983

Six hundred pages of tenuously connected Jack and Jackie drivel--in only the roughest sort of chronological order and with only sporadic reference to anything in the outer world. Item: ""Inga Arvad's son insists that his mother told him she had gone to bed with both Jack Kennedy and his father. What the son didn't know was that his mother had been the mistress of Kennedy Senior before and after she had been with Jack Kennedy."" Item: ""Thursday was the cook's night off and the Ambassador usually made his favorite lamb stew. He and Jacqueline not only shared personal feelings, but private jokes and even some outlandish games such as throwing lamb bones at the departing housekeeper, trying to hit her as she left the room."" The #1 topic, naturally, is JFK's incessant, indiscriminate, unceremonious womanizing. (""No doubt,"" said a buddy, ""he gave it a run with Lee""--who allegedly was set to marry Onassis, too, before Jackie entered the scene.) Other motifs: his zest (the one unclouded plus); his respect-for/disaffiliation-from his father; his and Jackie's ambivalence-toward/irritation-with each other (the only things they shared were wit and devotion to the children); and, in a lesser way, his political skill and lack of political commitment. World events--the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin Wall--figure in the same sketchy, personalized way; domestically, there are fragmentary references to civil rights. Altogether, the book is too patchy and ragged to pack a punch of any kind. (A rare exception: JFK resigns himself to LBJ as VP because ""I'm forty-three years old. I'm not going to die in office""; LBJ resigns himself to being VP because ""One out of four Presidents has died in office."") How much of this is new only someone who has read every scrap of Kennedy gossip will know; where some of it comes from only Martin (Jennie, Cissy) knows (the chapter notes are of a general nature). How many people will read it, after all the more sensational or more stinging others, is anybody's guess. In all: a tatty grab-bag--starting with that insincere (sarcastic?) title.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION