The Mount Holyoke News

Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: Books

I am someone who has always been fascinated by the mystique of the Kennedy family. In high school I worked at the local public library, and at 8:45 p.m. in a quiet suburban town, there was never much for me to do. I often found myself drawn to the biography section (call number 921) where the stories about this family-the good and the bad-kept me captivated time and time again. Following the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the third longest serving senator in US history, the Kennedy family is more relevant than ever. Whether it is historians reexamining the Kennedy legacy or a television series revisiting President Kennedy's assassination, this family-that is Joe Sr., Rose and their nine children-seem to be everywhere lately. No work is more important or more affecting than Senator Kennedy's memoir True Compass, published less than a month after his death.

True Compass, written from more than 50 years of the senator's notes and diaries, begins with a prologue that was written in 2008, following Senator Kennedy's diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor. In the prologue, entitled "The Torch," the senator vividly describes his love of sailing, his friends, his family and even his arduous medical treatment in the months preceding the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Here Kennedy establishes a powerful theme of his exceptional memoir. Although Kennedy knew of the "seriousness of death," the senator had work to do; approaching his cancer with a defeatist attitude, he explains, "is just not in my DNA." Instead his illness inspired him to write this memoir, which had been in progress for several years. What results is a sometimes somber and other times hysterically funny story of a life worth reading about.

True Compass offers an intimate glimpse into the Kennedy household and just what it meant to be the child of Joe and Rose Kennedy. His childhood was somewhat idyllic, although it was not without suffering; he experienced the trauma of his sister Rosemary's botched lobotomy and the deaths of his siblings Joe Jr. and Kathleen as a teenager. The memories of such heartbreaking events stayed with him throughout his life and shaped the man he became.

Kennedy writes fondly of his relationship with his maternal grandfather, his mother and his father. Included are humorous notes, completed by countless misspellings, which young Teddy sent to his father in London. In one telling and moving anecdote, the senator remembers the advice his father told him as a young boy. "You can have a serious life or a nonserious life, Teddy. I'll still love you whichever choice you make. But if you decide to have a nonserious life, I won't have much time for you." From this statement, Kennedy knew how he was expected to live his life and these words would influence his decision to enter the Senate in 1962.

What followed was not a life devoid of controversy. Beginning as a student at Harvard, where Kennedy was suspended for a year for cheating, he frequently encountered scandal. None is more haunting-in both public memory and Kennedy's-than the Chappaquiddick incident. In five pages of the 511 page memoir, Kennedy admits his responsibility for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Inclusions such as this provide True Compass with the necessary weight to make this not just one man's account of his distinguished life, but also a deeply affecting and revealing memoir.

Equally affecting are Kennedy's passages on his two brother's assassinations. Early on, we learn of Teddy's close relationship with Jack, who was the senator's godfather and a second father figure. His words about the untimely deaths of both President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy are both the most riveting and raw experience; emotional doesn't even begin to describe them.

As far as memoirs by political figures and powerful individuals are concerned, rarely do you get an honest account of their lives; something is always missing. Yet Senator Kennedy was a man who respected history-often Kennedy is quick to mention the name of a historical figure who lived in the same area of Boston as he did, who attended the same school as he did, or who was taught by the same professor as he was. However, Kennedy also understood his family's significant place in American history. For him, to write about his life with anything other than honesty would be a disservice to their legacy. This memoir not just Ted Kennedy's story; it is Joe Sr.'s and Rose's; Joe Jr.'s and Kathleen's; Rosemary's and Eunice's; Pat's and Jean's; and Jack's and Bobby's. It could very well be the final first person account of the Kennedy family and the aspirations of this family to make a better America. With True Compass, Senator Edward M. Kennedy has ensured that his legacy and his family's legacy will survive into the next generation.

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Further Reading:
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
by Robert Dallek

The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family
by Laurence Leamer

Robert Kennedy and His Times
by Robert M. Schlesinger Jr.

The Eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Portrait in her Own Words
by Bill Adler

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