Four Friends

A powerful portrait of four boarding school graduates who died too young—JFK, Jr. among them—by their fellow classmate, a New York Times–bestselling author.
"A wrenching, beautifully woven story about fate, friendship and the shattered dreams of once-golden privileged men. I couldn't put it down." —Jonathan Alter, New York Times–bestselling author of The Center Holds

In his masterful pieces for Vanity Fair and in his bestselling books, William D. Cohan has proven to be one of the most meticulous and intrepid journalists covering the world of Wall Street and high finance. In his utterly original new book, Four Friends, he brings all of his brilliant reportorial skills to a subject much closer to home: four friends of his who died young. All four attended Andover, the most elite of American boarding schools, before spinning out into very different orbits. Indelibly, using copious interviews from wives, girlfriends, colleagues, and friends, Cohan brings these men to life on the page.


Jack Berman, the child of impoverished Holocaust survivors, uses his unlikely Andover pedigree to achieve the American dream, only to be cut down in an unimaginable act of violence. Will Daniel, Harry Truman's grandson and the son of the managing editor of The New York Times, does everything possible to escape the burdens of a family legacy he's ultimately trapped by. Harry Bull builds the life of a careful, successful Chicago lawyer and heir to his family's fortune . . . before taking an inexplicable and devastating risk on a beautiful summer day. And the life and death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.—a story we think we know—is told here with surprising new details that cast it in an entirely different light.

Four Friends is an immersive, wide-ranging, tragic, and ultimately inspiring account of promising lives cut short, written with compassion, honesty, and insight. It not only captures the fragility of life but also its poignant, magisterial, and pivotal moments.

"An engaging, unsettling book. . . . An intensely humane work by a skillful writer of nonfiction narrative who knows how to make you forgive even as he damns." —Evan Thomas, The Washington Post
"Deeply moving, Four Friends explores the idea of fate and shattered promise with intelligence and heart. It will haunt you and make you think." —Susan Orlean, New York Times–bestselling author of The Library Book