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Description

No figure in American public life has had such great expectations thrust upon him, or has responded so poorly. But Ted Kennedy -- the youngest of the Kennedy children and the son who felt the least pressure to satisfy his father's enormous ambitions -- would go on to live a life that no one could have predicted: dismissed as a spent force in politics by the time he reached middle age, Ted became the most powerful senator of the last half century and the nation's keeper of traditional liberalism.

As Peter S. Canellos and his team of Boston Globe reporters show in this revealing and intimate biography, the gregarious, pudgy, and least academically successful of the Kennedy boys has witnessed greater tragedy and suffered greater pressure than any of his siblings. At the age of thirty-six, Ted Kennedy found himself the last brother, the champion of a generation's dreams and ambitions. He would be expected to give the nation the confidence to confront its problems and to build a fairer society at home and abroad.

He quickly failed in spectacular fashion. Late one night in the summer of 1969, he left the scene of a fatal automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island. The death there of a young woman from his brother's campaign would haunt and ultimately doom his presidential ambitions. Political rivals turned his all-too-human failings -- drinking, philandering, and divorce -- into a condemnation of his liberal politics.

But as the presidency eluded his grasp, Kennedy was finally liberated from the expectations of others, free to become his own man. Once a symbol of youthful folly and nepotism, he transformed himself in his later years into a symbol of wisdom and perseverance. He built a deeply loving marriage with his second wife, Victoria Reggie. He embraced his role as the family patriarch. And as his health failed, he anointed the young and ambitious presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom many commentators compared to his brother Jack. The Kennedy brand of liberalism was rediscovered by a new generation of Americans.

Perceptive and carefully reported, drawing heavily from candid interviews with the Kennedy family and inner circle, Last Lion captures magnificently the life and historic achievements of Ted Kennedy, as well as the personal redemption that he found.

About the Author

Peter Canellos is the Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe and oversees all national coverage for the paper, where he has worked since 1988 covering local, state, and national politics.

Praise for Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy…

"In 400 brisk but detail-rich pages, the book...sketches a poignant portrait."-- The New York Times Book Review

"If you want a peek inside America's royal family, this is a must-read, with details that only Boston Globe reporters could know."-- Tim O'Brien, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A balanced, nuanced, warts-and-all portrait."-- Kirkus Reviews

"A timely if not revelatory portrait of a flawed figure who 'never expected to become the custodian of his family's sorrows' but found a way to transcend the role."-- Alex Altman, Time

"A readable, relatively objective study of the once most-vilified man in contemporary American politics."-- The Washington Times

"With the publication of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, we get a fresh look at how this man's gothic imperatives -- blood loyalty and inherited duty -- would make him the greatest U.S. senator of modern times."-- Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball and author of Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America

"Last Lion is a fine biography, a graceful summing up an extraordinary life that is not yet over. It shows little sign of having been written by a team of seven, and it does not carry the tone of an obituary. With its anecdotes and political tales, it captures the wit, humor, and grace of Ted Kennedy and establishes his place, 'as much a part of the Capitol as the dome or the Rotunda beneath it.'"-- Ken Bode, The Boston Globe