Ask Not by Maureen Callahan #AskNot @DM_Maureen_ @mudlarkbooks @HarperNonFic @Kara_Ella #TheKennedys #BookReview

 

From New York Times bestseller Maureen Callahan, a fierce, character-driven exposé of the real Kennedy Curse―the family's generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem―and the women who have paid the price for our obsession with Camelot.

For decades, the Kennedy name has been synonymous with wealth, power, and―above all else―integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the Kennedy men's legacy of physical and psychological abuse of women, part of a tradition of toxic masculinity that spans generations and has ruined untold lives. Through scandal after scandal, the family and their defenders have managed to keep this shameful story out of the spotlight. Now, in Ask Not, bestselling journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys' hidden history of abuse and exploitation, laying bare their rampant misogyny and restoring women to the center of the dynasty's story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Mary Richardson, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren't nearly as well known – but rightfully should be.

Drawing on years of fierce reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled American family, showing how the Kennedy myth and their raw political power has enabled the clan's many predators while also silencing generations of traumatized women and girls. At long last, Callahan also redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys' orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves―and giving voice to the countless others who could not do the same.

Ask Not - The Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed by Maureen Callahan was published by Mudlark / Harper NonFiction on 4 July 2024. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

I grew up in the 1970s. The Kennedy family were probably at the height of their fame around that time. My Mum; a sensible Irish Catholic woman who didn't stand for fools easily adored the Kennedys and I was brought up listening to the glamour and high fashion filled tales of their lives. We lived in England but spent every summer in County Donegal, Ireland. Every house that I visited had three pictures on the wall ; the Sacred Heart, the Pope and JFK.  John F Kennedy had a saint-like status in Catholic Ireland, and it was many many years before I learnt the real truth about him and his family. 

If 'Ask Not' was a novel, a work of fiction, I can imagine readers being really critical. There could be cries about how one family could not be as toxic as the Kennedys. We would ask if the author was adding sensation to sell her story. However, sadly, this is not fiction. This is an anger inducing book filled with facts, carefully researched by the author and powerfully written down.

For too long, it has been the men of the Kennedy family who have taken centre stage, and at the moment we are subjected to so many pictures of RFK Jr since he teamed up with Trump and is now in charge of health care in the most powerful nation on earth.  Maureen Callahan has put the women who married them, loved them, had relationships with them and also suffered the most at their hands, at the heart of his book. We learn about women whose names have been forgotten over the years, whose own stories were not felt as important as those of the powerful corrupt Kennedy men. 

Compelling, searing and very timely. This is a grim, sordid read that will induce anger and rage in any decent reader. 

Maureen Callahan is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of the New York Times bestseller American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century. 

Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Spin, the New York Post (where she was a longtime columnist), and the Daily Mail, where she currently has a column. 

She lives in New York.

X @DM_Maureen_