Every summer, I read a lot of books. I always have. It is just something I enjoy. I will scour every thrift shop around here for dime and dollar treasures and I take them straight home and devour them in days. I love it.
I had been looking for this book for a solid year, and then by some twist of fate I ended up paying a quarter for it at the mission. I was so excited. I first saw it on pinterest when I was nosing through some photographs of The Kennedys. Anyone that knows me, knows that I will read anything about them. I watch all the conspiracy theory shows, I have read all of Jackie's biographies, I have even read a memoir by Clint Hill, the secret service agent who watched over Jackie and her children. Needless to say, I am hooked.
The book is a memoir about Radziwill's life. A 19 year old middle class girl from New York who becomes an award winning producer and marries a Polish Prince. Anthony Radziwill was the son of Caroline Lee Bouvier Radziwill, sister to Jackie Kennedy. This made him cousin to John John (JFK JR). Radziwill is thrust into a world of American royalty as well as European nobility, while balancing her spectacular career. She became best friends with JFK JR and his beautiful wife, Carolyn Besette Kennedy. Her life seemed perfect. It was from all accounts. And then her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she lost him and her two best friends within two weeks of each other. One from illness, the other in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.
Anthony and Carole Radziwill on their wedding day.
Some of you may know Carole Radziwill (De Falco) from The Real Housewives. She was also an emmy award winning producer and journalist with ABC news before she married into one of the most famous families in the world. I guess when you marry the nephew of Jackie Onassis, all that doesn't matter. I probably would not have read the book, if I had known that. But she does a wonderful job. I read it in two days. I laughed. I cried. I thought about it weeks after I had finished it. It made me truly thankful for my health and the health of my husband and my children.
Radziwill touches on two very different types of tragedy. The type of tragedy that you know is inevitable. The kind you can plan for, try to reroute, say your goodbyes and tick things you need to do "before" off the list. She and her husband fought the cancer until the very end. “There is the disease and the person, and though I am living with both, one has robbed me of the other.”
She also touches on the type of tragedy that takes the wind right out of your sails. The kind that is unplanned, unfathomable, and horrifying. The type of thing that is every person's worst nightmare. I, myself, can't imagine. “Afterward I tried to find something to explain what had happened—was it
cloudy, were the stars out? But the night was ordinary. It usually is, I
think, when your life changes. Most people aren’t doing anything
special when the carefully placed pieces of their life break apart.”
JFK JR and CBK
I am not sure which type is worse. I never want to find out. I can't say that either outweighs the other, they are just as hefty but in different ways. The book has a very melancholy feel to it. I felt sad for a few days after, but I really did enjoy reading it. The author manages to shy away from making it Kennedy centered, which I was surprised by because, of course, everyone likes to revel in the family's misfortune. She seemed to genuinely adore them and want to capture their essence. Speaking of JFK JR holding his dying cousin's hand and singing a child hood lullaby. (Brought me to tears) She also spoke of Carolyn and how she gave Anthony a framed picture of her dog to keep in his hospital room, because "[e]veryone should have a dog." Radziwill shined light on a famously private couple and painted a beautiful tribute of them, as well as to her life with her Anthony, her husband, while speaking of her early childhood and her career and travels. All in all, a very interesting read. I could not put it down. But please, get a box of tissues, you will need them.
I have included some reviews of What Remains. It was a New York Times Bestseller and actually was not marketed as a "Kennedy" book.
"A moving testimony to the tenuous nature of love and life."
-- USA Today
"Stunning...Radziwill gets at the essence of what matters -- friendship, compassion, destiny."
-- Oprah Winfrey, O, the oprah Magazine
"A riveting and heartbreaking journey."
-- Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle
"A stunning memoir of love and loss...Carole Radziwill is a natural storyteller."
-- O, The Oprah Magazine
"One of the best memoirs...a small masterpiece...devastating and beautifully written."
-- New York Post
"Powerfully affecting...a highly compelling read."
-- Vogue
"Bittersweet and tender."
-- The New York Times Book Review
Labels: Book Review, Fate, Friendship, Love, Summer Reading, The Kennedy's
