interview hetells Julietinterview Rieden theanswer ismuchcloserto home. James Inarevealing Patterson, thetruth. unlocks whose newbook Is theKennedy Neither, unluckyorcursed? family says author Joseph Senior, Eunice, Rosemary andKathleen. from left: Joseph Junior, John, Rose, Jean and Patricia. Seated from left: Robert, Edward, The Kennedy family inthe1930s. Standing

GETTY IMAGES. T KENNEDY revives thefamilyforanew intimate detailPattersonreveals theory untapped–butthe no stoneunturned, noconspiracy to besaidabouttheKennedys– thought therewasnothingmore there’s drama toit,” heopines. just storyafterstory, written itwithanovelist’s tone:it’s lustre ofagrippingepic. “I have turner whichboaststhepaceand those skillstothisnon-fictionpage- mostly writesfictionandhastransferred new book, TheKennedy Curse . Patterson the riseandfallofdynastyinhis authors ofalltime, decidedtoexamine James Patterson, oneofthebest-selling mythologised intoacurse. only threemonthsago–hasbeen their livesinacanoeingaccident eight-year-old sontragicallylosing day withhisgrand-nieceandher cholera, age35, andcontinuestothis great-grandfather wasfelledby F. Kennedy’s assassinationwhenhis – whichbegan105yearsbeforeJohn history, whiletheseemingbadluck family’s lifechangedthecourseof most tumultuousmomentsinthe deification andcondemnation. The in myth, rumourandsimultaneous technicolour dailylivesareshrouded Before readingthebook, I It’s nowonder thenthatthrillerwriter whose impeccablystyled seductive, beautifulpeople America’s royalty, aclanof the Kennedyfamily. They are here’s somethingcelestialabout CURSE THE telling thestoryofthatera. There’s so – andaswelltheirstory, youarealso Queen ElizabethII]was–inmyopinion interesting thanElizabeth[Princess, then Crown. The Kennedysarealotmore screen adaptation. “It’s the American Crown andisalreadyworkingona has allthemakingsofNetflixhitThe chuffed withthebookandfeelsit in PalmBeach, Florida. He’s rightly in COVID-19 lockdowninhishome tells meandworkingupastormwhile Patterson is “staring attheocean”, he story,” heexplains. nobody hadtoldthewholefamily’s unbelievable tale. Ithoughtthat generation toporeover. “It’s justan ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ We aretalkingonthephone. James ABOUT ABOUT TRUTH THE THE

JULY 2020 moaning wordsandhe’s freezingcold. Joe Snr’s bed. Shewantshimtohaveit. that wasdrapedonJack’s coffinnear kisses himgoodbyeandleavestheflag Kennedy comestoseeherfather-in-law, world mourned, adistraughtJackie iconic stateoccasionwhenthewhole to attendhisson’s funeral.” After that in HyannisPort, Massachusetts, tooill convalescing attheKennedycompound explains Patterson. “He hasbeen Kennedy’s father. “Joe hashadastroke,” Snr, PresidentJohnF. (knownasJack) places over him. It’s Joseph (Joe) Kennedy Anna grabsthenearestcover, whichshe in themiddleofnightandhisniece imagined asamovieopener. new and, hesuggests, caneasilybe an extraordinaryscenethatiscertainly is stillevolving. Patterson’s prologuesets ripe forrevisitingwhilethewiderfamily happened ahalfcenturyagoandis the storyatall.” under 30, under20, whodon’t know there arealotofpeopleunder40, know,” hecontinues. “What’s more, much inmybookthatpeopledidn’t “Joe can’t communicatebeyond A frailoldmanwakesupscreaming He’s right. The JackandJackiestory from theflag,” hewrites. struggles topullhimselffree his earlyparalysedbody, he Patterson. inside “Trapped such atelegraphicscene,” says with thisflag... tomeit’s just bedroom andcovershim is rummagingaroundinthe Finally, Anna comesinand | The Australian Women’s Weekly Family values →

75 Family values

Sense of doom damage them. That whole thing about At the heart of Patterson’s interpretation you must be better than you From left: Joe “Although he’s of the Kennedy journey is the familiar can be, and that’s the only thing that Kennedy Snr and concept of a doomed dynasty with a matters ... That’s tough. And then, take Rose on their a god, Jack’s a dark curse that has forever hung over the risk. Do it! It’s interesting that a wedding day, 1914; its offspring. Four of Joe Snr’s nine couple of the family members seem Gloria Swanson; human being children died too soon, while daughter to have escaped it. Caroline [Jack Maeve Kennedy (in Rosemary’s life was devastated by a and Jackie’s daughter] has lived a pink) and son Gideon drowned in April; botched lobotomy. Jack and Jackie’s with foibles.” somewhat normal life. But for pretty Jackie and John. only son, John Jnr, was killed with his much all of the immediate family, ‘the fascinating of all the Kennedys, wife in a plane crash in 1999, two of Kennedy curse’ affected all of them.” the most complex, probably the Jack’s assassinated brother Robert’s smartest and also the most sons also died young and the tragedies The dream damaged. He was capable of continue to this day striking down The Kennedy dream was the vision of some pretty dark stuff.” through the far-reaching tentacles of the Joseph Kennedy Sr, whose grandfather family. “The Kennedy curse is an idea arrived on one of the so-called ‘coffin Sins of the father that endures,” Patterson concurs. But ships’. Patterson describes them as The Kennedy Curse Joe Snr’s womanising was something for him it’s not really true; at least not in “overcrowded, disease-riddled, barely by James Patterson else he famously passed on to his sons, the sense that continues to feed seaworthy sailing vessels” that and Cynthia Fagen, especially Jack. “Over time, you find newspapers headlines. transported millions of impoverished published by Penguin, out that although he’s this god, Jack’s a “One way of looking at this ‘curse’ is Irish fleeing the potato famine to is on sale now. human being, with foibles, and part of that yes, there are all these tragedies. But a hope-filled new life in the US. it is what his father passed down. The the other way – which is how I look at Thirty per cent died en route. father was this incredible womaniser it – is that Joe Kennedy Snr unwittingly Patrick Joseph Kennedy was 27 when is known to be insatiable,” writes She was a beautiful baby, but her and for some people that seemed to be put the curse on the family. He stressed he arrived in Boston and died at 35, but Patterson. He was especially obsessed development was affected. She grew to accepted in those days, for movie stars that his children and grandchildren had the Kennedys were on their way. “On a with screen siren Gloria Swanson. be a loving teenager, but early on fell far and politicians,” says Patterson. to overachieve. You had to be superior, state visit to Ireland in 1963, President “Joe is smitten ... Their intimate affair could be president. So the whole rise short of the Kennedy need for excellence. When writing the book, he was you had to push, push, push. And the Kennedy states: ‘When my great- begins one afternoon at the Hotel of JFK [meant something to me]. I “Poor Rosemary,” says Patterson with a amazed at the details he uncovered other piece in the puzzle is that he grandfather left here to become Poinciana in Palm Beach. He slyly wasn’t totally shocked when Kennedy sigh. “She was perfectly fine, just a little and it is these that bring new drama always encouraged his kids to take a cooper [a maker of beer casks] in arranges to have his friend and business was elected president, but it was a big slower than the rest of the family ... but to the Kennedy soap opera. “They are risks. ‘Go climb that tree. If you fall and East Boston, he carried nothing with associate Edward Moore take Swanson’s deal. Then I was in high school when oh no, that wasn’t acceptable.” When stunning, like JFK having Judy Garland break your arm, climb it again.’ And him except two things: a strong religious third husband, the French Marquis we got the news that President Kennedy she reaches 21, Rosemary’s moods have sing Over the Rainbow to him over the that risk-taking, it’s all through the story faith and desire for liberty. I am glad to Henri de Bailly de La Falaise, on a had been shot and died. That was become erratic. She suffers “depression phone when he was president because of Kennedys, including with sons Joe say that all of his great-grandchildren deep-sea fishing trip while Joe makes stunning. And my memory is that they punctuated by violent verbal and he loved the song. And Neil Diamond’s and Jack who both took tremendous have valued that inheritance.” a surprise visit to Swanson’s room.” then gave us some time off from school physical outburst,” he writes. Sweet Caroline being written after risks in the war. It was built into them.” Joe and Rose Kennedy created “the In her memoir Gloria recalls: “He and I was actually watching television Rose is concerned that her daughter he saw a photo of [JFK’s daughter] Joe Snr’s eldest son, Joseph Patrick century’s most historic family”, with moved so quickly his mouth was on with my parents when, live, Jack Ruby may form dangerous liaisons that could Caroline riding her pony. It’s all about Kennedy Jnr, who Patterson says the Rose bearing nine children. And while mine before either of us could speak.” shot Lee Harvey Oswald [Kennedy’s bring shame on the family. “My great these little details,” he says. “That patriarch called “the star of the family ... she was having his children, Joe was How did Kennedy matriarch Rose alleged assassin]. It was horrifying.” ambition was to have my children Bobby Kennedy saved his young son the slender, handsome, athletic, blue-eyed pursuing another dream, to buy into react to the torrid Swanson affair morally, physically and mentally as David’s life from drowning, and that Harvard student” was a pilot in World Hollywood. He became a studio head and others her husband failed to Imperfect Rosemary perfect as possible,” Rose stated. So, night he was assassinated [June 6, 1968] War II and in 1944 sought out a special and also a notable philanderer. “Joe’s hide? Patterson says the couple lived One of the most affecting parts of the when Joe Snr hears of “this amazing ... Actually, a friend of mine is Harry assignment “requiring what his brother appetite for bedding young women increasingly separate lives, only coming book tells of Joe Snr’s catastrophic operation” to separate the frontal Benson, a photographer who was in the Jack would later describe as ‘the together for the children with an decision to have his daughter Rose lobe from the rest of the brain, he feels kitchen when Bobby was shot. He took most dangerous type of flying’.” outward show of propriety, and Marie lobotomised. Rosemary, as she it’s the cure they long for. “It was a that well-known shot where Ethel Joe was admired by his fellow this worked for them. Then when was known, was the eldest daughter, lobotomy,” says Patterson. “Rosemary [Bobby’s widow] held her hand up airmen for his unparalleled zeal to Joe swapped Hollywood for born in 1918 when the Spanish flu wound up in a mental hospital for to camera. Bobby’s body is on the undertake daring missions and finance and politics his children pandemic was raging. Doctors were the rest of her life and for me this was floor, and Ethel is trying to stop the was killed in 1944 when his plane became a key part of his ambition. overburdened and as Patterson tells it, one part of what I consider to be ‘the photographer. Harry and his wife Gigi exploded mid-air. His death meant Patterson grew up with the when Rose went into labour at home Kennedy curse’. It was all Joe.” were great friends of Bobby and Ethel. the focus for Joe Snr’s political James Kennedy story bubbling in the the obstetrician was delayed. “The nurse I ask if he thinks Joe Snr ever accepted But Harry told me that Ethel never ambition to have a Kennedy in the Patterson background of the national psyche orders Rose to squeeze her legs tightly responsibility for what happened to forgave him for taking that picture. White House now fell on Jack. believes Joe Snr and says he was aware of John F. together to delay the birth and incredibly Rosemary. “I don’t know, he’s such a “I think this is going to be an amazing unwittingly “I think the extent of the father, put the curse Kennedy’s aura from an early age. goes so far as to push the baby’s strange guy. You’d have to figure on story. For some people it’s a nostalgia and Joe Snr’s influence is [marked]. on the family. “He was a god. I grew up Catholic partially exposed head back into the some level, yes. But he seemed to be able the sense of ‘I didn’t know all that stuff’, I don’t think he meant to damage and at that point people found birth canal for two excruciating hours to compartmentalise everything and and then for others, it’s like ‘Oh my God,

the kids, but oh how much it did it inconceivable that a Catholic IMAGES. GETTY – depriving the fragile baby of oxygen.” keep moving forward. He was the most what an unbelievable story!’” AWW

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