Last Lion
The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The comprehensive New York Times bestselling biography of Senator Ted Kennedy dives deeply into his political career, his shocking downfall, and his redemption from disappointing member of a grand dynasty to respected sage in the Senate.
No figure in American public life had such great expectations thrust upon him and fallen short of them so quickly. But Ted Kennedy, the gregarious, pudgy, and least academically successful of the Kennedy boys, became the most powerful senator for over forty years and the nation’s keeper of traditional liberalism.
As Peter S. Canellos and his team of reporters from The Boston Globe show in this intimate biography, Ted witnessed greater tragedy and suffered greater pressure than his siblings. He inherited a generation’s dreams and was expected to help confront his nation’s problems in order to build a fairer society. But political rivals turned his all-too-human failings into a condemnation of his liberal politics. As the presidency eluded his grasp, Kennedy was finally free to become his own man. He transformed himself into a symbol of wisdom and perseverance.
Perceptive and carefully reported, drawing from candid interviews with the Kennedy family, Last Lion captures magnificently the life, historic achievements, and personal redemption of Ted Kennedy, and offers a fresh assessment of his enduring legacy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This biography delves deeply into Senator Kennedy's nearly half-century legislative career but it's the personal dramas that prove the most enthralling; tracks are organized such that listeners bored by the politics can click ahead for a quit exit back to Hyannisport, Georgetown, Palm Beach or Chappaquiddick. Skipp Sudduth imbues his narration with feeling, recounting the numerous tragedies (the death of all three of Kennedy's brothers, his son's cancer and subsequent leg amputation, his nephew JFK Jr.'s fatal plane crash and now his own brain tumor) with quiet dignity. Despite the countless trials, this is anything but depressing listening; the resilience and indomitable optimism of the subject himself is well-conveyed by this enjoyable recording. A Simon & Schuster hardcover.
