Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter

by Barbara Leaming

Overview

From a New York Times bestselling author comes a mesmerizing story of love, loss, and war.

An unforgettable portrait of the Kennedy family’s favorite daughter, Kick Kennedy begins with Kick’s arrival in England in 1938 as her father became the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St James’s. In the closed world of the British aristocracy, Kick was gloriously, exhilaratingly different, the girl whom all the boys fell in love with. But she was the star of a world in the midst of tumultuous social and political change, and as war came, she would have to confront crushing sadness and the consequences of forsaking much dear to her for love, before her heartbreaking death in 1948.

Bestselling and award-winning biographer Barbara Leaming draws on her unique access to firsthand accounts and candid conversations with many of the key players whose own lives were entwined with Kick’s, to transport us to a world of immense wealth, arcane rituals and rules, glamour and tragedy, that has now vanished forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250071316
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

BARBARA LEAMING is the author of acclaimed biographies of Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles, and many others. Two of Leaming’s books have been New York Times bestsellers and three have been New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Her articles have appeared in many publications in the United States and Europe, including the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and the Times of London.

Barbara Leaming is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including her most recent book Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Leaming’s previous book, Churchill Defiant received The Emery Reves Award from the International Churchill Centre. Her groundbreaking biography of America's 35th President, Jack Kennedy: The Education of a Statesman was the first to detail the lifelong influence of British history and culture and especially of Winston Churchill on JFK. Her articles have appeared in the NY Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Times of London and other periodicals. She lives in Connecticut.

Editorial Reviews

05/09/2016
Kennedy biographer Leaming (Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis) is unlikely to persuade readers who aren’t already Kennedy completists that their time is well spent in reading about the last decade of the short life of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy (1920–1948). Kennedy’s childhood is largely skipped over, with Leaming presenting the 18-year-old daughter of the new U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain in 1938 as she’s introduced to the British aristocracy. The British aristocratic lifestyle waned during the interwar period and the “Little American Girl” became for them a symbol of their “vanished world.” The book traces Kennedy’s relationship with various scions of the nobility in detail, building up to her growing attachment to William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington. Their romance distresses her Catholic parents, who can’t countenance their daughter marrying a Protestant. Kennedy marries anyway, in 1944, but Hartington is killed in battle within a few months. Kennedy’s herself is killed in a plane crash in 1948 along with her married lover, Peter Fitzwilliam. Despite Leaming’s extensive interviews with the surviving members of Kennedy’s “aristocratic cousinhood,” she fails to make the case that such attention to Kennedy’s life is warranted; many will reach the last page wondering what was so special about Kennedy, apart from her last name. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

2016-02-15
A biography of the comparatively unheralded sister closest in age to John F. Kennedy strains to find something new to say about the Kennedy clan. How this book was written might be more interesting than the actual contents, as Leaming apparently stumbled across her story while researching more substantial biographies (Churchill Defiant, 2010, etc.). The framing sustains some suspense, as the book begins with an unnamed source whose identity isn't revealed until the final pages. In between, Leaming chronicles a changing Britain through World War II and its immediate aftermath, as the country's mood changed from isolationism and appeasement—in line with the position favored by Ambassador Joseph Kennedy—to a patriotic engagement with the Nazis, which found many sons of the British aristocracy serving and dying in the war, to an aftermath that saw both Churchill and the aristocracy challenged by a populist surge. Amid all this is a love story that wouldn't fill a book if it didn't involve the Kennedys. Leaming mainly examines the romance between a feisty debutante and Billy Cavendish, heir to a prestigious dukedom. Marrying Billy would give Kick an identity, wealth, and power independent of her family, but it would also mean crossing her family by marrying outside the Catholic Church. True love weathered those challenges, but the war ended Billy's life a month after they wed, with Kick in America (to the displeasure of her new British family) mourning the recent death of her brother in the war. Should Kick remarry, as Billy prophetically advised? Will she retain her British ties or return to live in the States? While the young widow tried to figure out her life without becoming a duchess (a future she seemed to miss as much or more than her late husband), she made a surprising choice that would further alienate her family and result in her early death. Leaming doesn't present much new for Kennedy buffs, but the age of Downton Abbey offers fresh context for this story of American royalty and its more tradition-minded British counterpart.

Kirkus Reviews

Strikingly original.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Evokes the luminous spirit of Kick Kennedy.” —Vanity Fair

“Candidly demystifies the life of one of the least-known Kennedys and vividly illuminates the complex world of British aristocracy.” —Booklist

From the Publisher