Earlier this year I read my first book by Laurie Graham. I had tried some of her others previously but for some reason or another could not get on with them. Gone with the Windsors interested me because it was set in the time of the Abdication, a period of history I find fascinating. I was trapped in Gatwick airport during the hoo-hah when you weren't allowed to take anything on board with you, no make up, no liquids, nada and of course the shops were doing a roaring trade with everyone rushing and purchasing what they needed as soon as you got through security. The whole thing was a farce, but at least it made me read a book I otherwise would not have looked at as I shot into Books etc as soon as I had been cleared of planning to blow up my plane.
The Importance of Being Kennedy is the story of Nora Brennan, a young girl from Ireland who emigrates to the USA, and becomes nanny to the Kennedy family. It is witty and amusing just as the earlier book, but as it covers a period up to the end of the Second World War, we do not reach the series of terrible tragedies and scandals that befell the Kennedys from 1963 onwards which is probably just as well. Not much to laugh at there.
Joe Kennedy was a Boston/Irish entrepreneur, making money hand over fist, and rather despised by his upper crust 'old' Boston neighbours who never visited him or his wife Rose. She produced nine children throughout this marriage and adored her husband even though he was a serial adulterer and, according to this book, numbered Gloria Swanson the Hollywood film star, amongst his conquests. I remember seeing Rose Kennedy on television and in magazines and she seemed an indomitable character and the matriarch of the family who brooked no opposition from her children, no matter what age they were.
The portrayal of family life is given totally from he nursery point of view and we learn how the eldest, Joe, was the golden boy of the family and earmarked for President by his parents. Jack, spotty, skinny and permanently suffering from one complaint or another, Eunice, Kathleen ("Kick") and spoiled Edward the last child and the baby of the family. In the middle of all these bright achieving children was Rosie. She was slow and backward and therefore rather despised by her parents who felt that she should not be this way as she was a Kennedy. Various schools were tried but she was happiest at home looking after her brothers and sisters and was Nora's favourite out of all the children.
The Kennedys have always tried to keep Rosie's fate under wraps but according to this story, and I have read this elsewhere, as Rosie reached her teens and early twenties, she became interested in going out and about and meeting up with young men in whom, according to Rose 'she developed an unhealthy obsession'. 'There must be no babies Nora' Rose told her 'she must be watche'd. Nora was with the family when Joe Kennedy Snr was appointed Ambassador at St James and it was during this period that she visited Chatsworth as a maid to Kathleen Kennedy and met a gardener there, Walter who rather took a shine to her. When Joe Kennedy decided to resign and take his family home at the outbreak of war, Nora elected to stay behind and marry Walter and thus lost daily touch with Rosie. She later heard that Rosie had been hospitalised to have 'a part of her brain removed, to calm her down', in other words, a lobotomy. It went wrong and Rosie turned into a mental wreck and was insitutionalised for the rest of her life. Many years later, on a visit to America, Nora visits her and is horrified at what she finds. Her parents had never visited their daughter in all the years she was in the home and for that neglect and disinterest, Nora never forgave them.
Other tragedies occur, Joe Kennedy Jr is killed in the war and Kathleen dies in a plane crash but throughout all this horror and sorrow the Kennedys soldier on 'Kennedys don't cry Nora' says Jack who is now standing for Congressman and then to have a crack at the Presidency. And we all know what happens from now on.........
It sounds odd to call this book witty and amusing after writing about all the above, but it is. We have an insight into the childhood of Bobby, Jack and Edward, the Kennedy brothers we probably know most about. Joe Kennedy Snr features well, visiting the children, having a great time with them and playing games and reading to them at nightime (whch makes his treatment of Rosie puzzling), something which Rose certainly never did, spending most of her time visiting Europe and shopping.
The voice of Nora is real and true and you almost wish she did exist and had given the young Kennedy children the love and warmth and support that they needed. I found this book fascinating, I suppose it falls into the category faction and by the end of it you almost believe this was how it was. it would have been nice to think that it was so for those hot housed children with their ambitious parents.
