 |
| YOCUM CALL # E843.K42 G55 2019 |
by Miriam Stone, Learning Access and Resource Specialist
It has been said that John F. Kennedy Jr. exerted great caution in choosing friends. It seems that he must have been drawn to writers since there have been so many publications written by those who proclaim to be part of “John’s inner circle,” “John’s closest confidantes,” and “John’s chosen pals.”
This particular writer, Steven M. Gillon, was 25 and a graduate student at Brown University when he met John, 21 and a junior. Their paths crossed off and on for more than ten years and in that time, a friendship developed. It is somewhat refreshing that Gillon readily admits that he was not one of Kennedy’s closest confidantes, merely a spoke on the wheel that surrounded one of the most public figures of all time. He examines Kennedy’s life and his legend and he does an admirable job of separating the myth from the man.
The John Kennedy Jr. that Gillon speaks of is a reasonably intelligent, handsome, personable man who knows what his role in history will be. He is aware that no matter how hard he tries, people will not see him. They will see a person whose life is played out internationally by a media that will interpret what they see and use it to their advantage. However, it is far from one-sided. Kennedy is a mastermind of manipulation when it comes to the press and he is not above using the users to further his own purpose. It all becomes a strange dance between two adversaries and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.
Gillon gives a full-spectrum account of Kennedy’s life and he gives the reader something more.
He is an expert on modern American history (his credits are in his by-line) and by using his skills as a researcher and historian, he digs up previously classified Secret Service documents and long closed FBI files. He tells the story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and it becomes an excellent comprehensive study of the Kennedy legacy and of a family who continues to influence our world.
No comments:
Post a Comment