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Title details for True Compass by Edward M. Kennedy - Available

True Compass

A Memoir

by Edward M. Kennedy
John Bedford Lloyd
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
In this landmark autobiography, five years in the making, Senator Edward M. Kennedy tells his extraordinary personal story — of his legendary family, politics, and fifty years at the center of national events.
The youngest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, he came of age among siblings from whom much was expected. As a young man, he played a key role in the presidential campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy, recounted here in loving detail. In 1962 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he began a fascinating political education and became a legislator.
In this historic memoir, Ted Kennedy takes us inside his family, re-creating life with his parents and brothers and explaining their profound impact on him. For the first time, he describes his heartbreak and years of struggle in the wake of their deaths. Through it all, he describes his work in the Senate on the major issues of our time — civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the quest for peace in Northern Ireland — and the cause of his life: improved health care for all Americans, a fight influenced by his own experiences in hospitals.
His life has been marked by tragedy and perseverance, a love of family, and an abiding faith. There have been controversies, too, and Kennedy addresses them with unprecedented candor. At midlife, embattled and uncertain if he would ever fall in love again, he met the woman who changed his life, Victoria Reggie Kennedy. Facing a tough reelection campaign against an aggressive challenger named Mitt Romney, Kennedy found a new voice and began one of the great third acts in American politics, sponsoring major legislation, standing up for liberal principles, and making the pivotal endorsement of Barack Obama for president.
Hundreds of books have been written about the Kennedys. True Compass will endure as the definitive account from a member of America's most heralded family, an inspiring legacy to readers and to history, and a deeply moving story of a life like no other.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 8, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781600247552
      • File size: 548061 KB
      • Duration: 19:01:47

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 30, 2009
      In bringing Kennedy's sweeping memoir to life, John Bedford Lloyd conveys an intimacy and sincerity that allows for reverence without idolatry. Lloyd does his best work in conveying the Lion of the Senate's introspective musings on family, faith, and loss, but his portrayals of such figures as former presidents Carter and Reagan lapse into caricatures. Bonus features include a video interview, largely a summary of the book's contents, though still priceless from the standpoint of historical posterity. The PDF of photographs offers a rather impressive visual resource spanning the time period of Kennedy's narrative. A Twelve hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 5).

    • AudioFile Magazine
      John Bedford Lloyd's mellifluous voice lends coherence and intimacy to this first-person narrative. The late senator's clear, punchy sentence structure is easy for the listener to comprehend. This should be no surprise since the book developed from the University of Virginia's Edward Kennedy Oral History Project. Cape Cod's sea light casts a soft glow on fifty years of American history as seen from Hyannis, where Kennedy wrote much of the book. Like most memoirs by older people, Kennedy's is weighted heavily toward his early life. It effectively captures his youth in the 1940s and '50s and the glories and tragedies of the 1960s. Ronald Reagan rates a few anecdotes. George W. Bush barely seems to exist. F.C. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 14, 2009
      Of course, the recent death of Senator Kennedy adds an extra layer of poignancy, but this would be a welcome addition to the political memoir bookshelf under any circumstances. Drawing upon a series of oral history interviews, and with the help of Ron Powers (Flags of Our Fathers), Kennedy devotes more than half of the book to the first half of his life-growing up as the youngest of his generation, gaining a political education while touring the western U.S. for Jack's presidential campaign in 1960, clashing with Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam, and the heartache of Jack and Bobby's assassinations. After a brief section on Chappaquiddick, Kennedy tends to the anecdotal when discussing his political career from clashing with Nixon over Supreme Court nominations to campaigning for Barack Obama. (Recollections of courting his second wife, Vicki, bring a welcome spark of personal charm.) Some readers may feel there is not quite enough introspection-while acknowledging his first wife's alcoholism, for example, Kennedy glosses over his own drinking problems-but despite the firm line he draws in the sand about discussing his personal life, Kennedy's tone of contrition is sincere. When he was a child, Kennedy's father told him, "You can have a serious life or a nonserious life." He chose the former, and at the end, seems genuinely grateful not just for what that life gave him, but what it enabled him to do for others.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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