First published 2015
Kate Larson uncovers the concealed life of Rosemary Kennedy, the intellectually disabled daughter whom America's most powerful political family kept hidden from public view. Drawing from Rose Kennedy's personal diaries, medical correspondence, and family interviews, Larson documents how Joe and Rose Kennedy initially provided caring support for their beautiful daughter. Rosemary attended private schools, made her debut before the Queen of England, and traveled with her sisters across Europe. But as the family's political ambitions grew and Rosemary became more difficult to manage in her early twenties, her parents made increasingly desperate attempts to hide her condition. The book reveals Joe Kennedy's decision to authorize a lobotomy when Rosemary was twenty-three, followed by decades of institutional isolation. Larson shows how JFK's eventual visit to his sister in a Wisconsin facility after nearly twenty years opened the family's eyes to what they had done. This reckoning led the Kennedys to champion disability rights and transform public policy for millions of Americans.
Genres: biography, history, family, 20th-century, 21st-century, disability
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: hidden-identity, rags-to-riches
Setting: England, Europe, United States, Wisconsin
Period: 1920s, 1940s, 1960s
302 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Content warnings: ableism, mental-illness