Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter (Larson)

Rosemary:  The Hidden Kennedy Daughter
Kate Clifford Larson, 2015
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547250250


Summary
They were the most prominent American family of the twentieth century. The daughter they secreted away made all the difference.

Joe and Rose Kennedy’s strikingly beautiful daughter Rosemary attended exclusive schools, was presented as a debutante to the Queen of England, and traveled the world with her high-spirited sisters. And yet, Rosemary was intellectually disabled—a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and glamorous family.

Major new sources—Rose Kennedy’s diaries and correspondence, school and doctors' letters, and exclusive family interviews—bring Rosemary alive as a girl adored but left far behind by her competitive siblings.

Kate Larson reveals both the sensitive care Rose and Joe gave to Rosemary and then—as the family’s standing reached an apex—the often desperate and duplicitous arrangements the Kennedys made to keep her away from home as she became increasingly intractable in her early twenties. Finally, Larson illuminates Joe’s decision to have Rosemary lobotomized at age twenty-three, and the family's complicity in keeping the secret.

Rosemary delivers a profoundly moving coda: JFK visited Rosemary for the first time while campaigning in the Midwest; she had been living isolated in a Wisconsin institution for nearly twenty years. Only then did the siblings understand what had happened to Rosemary and bring her home for loving family visits. It was a reckoning that inspired them to direct attention to the plight of the disabled, transforming the lives of millions. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1958-59
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., M.A., Simmons College; M.B.A., University of New Hampshire; Ph.D.,
   Northeastern University
• Honors—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Winchester, Massachusetts


Kate Clifford Larson is an American author, historian, and consultant, most well known as a Harriet Tubman scholar. Her 2003 biography Harriet Tubman, Bound for the Promised Land was one of the first non-juvenile Tubman biographies published in six decades. She lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Education
Larson earned both her  B.A. and M.A. from Simmons College and, later, an M.B.A. from Northeastern University. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in history at the University of New Hampshire.

Harriet Tubman
When Larson published Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land in 2003, two other non-juvenile biographies of Tubman were also published: Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez, and Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton (see LitLovers Review).

Dr. Larson is the consultant for the Harriet Tubman Special Resource Study of the National Park Service. She serves on the advisory board of the Historic Context on the Underground Railroad in Delaware, Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware.

Other works
In addition to her book on Tubman, Larson published her 2008 work The Assassin's Accomplice, about Mary Surratt's role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In 2015.

She is also the author of the 2015 Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, about Rosemary Kennedy, the mentally disabled sister of President John F. Kennedy.

Larson has also contributed articles and reviews to the Library Quarterly; Afro-Americans In New York Life and History; and a variety of other publications.

Honors & Fellowships
2015 - Wilbur H. Siebert Award, National Park Service Network to Freedom Program
2013 - Commendation, South Caroline House of Representatives Resolution
2007-  Education Excellence Award 2007, Maryland Historical Trust
- Price Research Fellowship, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan
- Fellowship, John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization, Brown University
- University Dissertation Fellowship, University of New Hampshire
- Margaret Storrs Grierson Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship, Smith College
- Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship, Boston Athenaeum

Book Reviews
The tragic life of Rosemary Kennedy, the intellectually disabled member of the Kennedy clan, has been well documented in many histories of this famous family. But she has often been treated as an afterthought, a secondary character kept out of sight during the pivotal 1960s. Now the third child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy takes center stage in Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, by Kate Clifford Larson, a biography that chronicles her life with fresh details and tells how her famous siblings were affected by—and reacted to—Rosemary's struggles…[Larson] has amplified this well-told tale with newly released material from the John F. Kennedy Library and a few interviews. By making Rosemary the central character, she has produced a valuable account of a mental health tragedy, and an influential family's belated efforts to make amends.
Meryl Gordon - New York Times Book Review


[E]ngrossing.... This younger sister of John F. Kennedy exhibited developmental delays from an early age. The author makes it evident that an understanding of special needs, especially those of children, was sorely lacking in the early 20th century.... [An] expertly researched...and candid examination. —Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA
Library Journal


Fascinating but heartbreaking reading...[with] questions that will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.
BookPage


Well-researched and fascinating.... Heartbreaking and illuminating, this will serve not only Kennedy fans but also those curious about the history of disabilities in the U.S.
Booklist


In-depth coverage of one Kennedy daughter who never gained the spotlight like her siblings.... A well-researched, entertaining, and illuminating biography that should take pride of place over another recent Rosemary bio, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff's The Missing Kennedy.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Rosemary:

1. How much did you know about Rosemary Kennedy before reading this book? What surprised you the most about her history...and about the Kennedy family?

2. Talk about young Rosemary—before her symptoms became so severe? What was she like as a child and as a young woman?

3. What role did the Kennedy parents play in their daughter's life, and what was its effect on her. How did she interact with her siblings?

4. Given the advances in treatment of mental disorders, how would doctors diagnose Rosemary's disorder today? How would her treatment be different? Were other options available back in the 1930s and 40s?

5. Why did Joseph Kennedy choose not to reveal Rosemary's lobotomy to the family? What moral issues, if any, are at stake in both making the decision to lobotomize and in keeping it secret?

6. Talk about the quality of Rosemary's life following her lobotomy? Why did no one visit her for more than two decades?

7.  What do you think of Joseph Kennedy, his ambitions and obsessions?

8. Talk about Eunice Kennedy and her commitment to improving the lives of those with mental illness. How familiar were you with her work?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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