Book Recommendation: “What Remains” by Carole Radziwell
Memoir: Subject: Caroline Bisset Kennedy and that horrible, fateful night
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Wiwill, a family of royal descent. Since Jackie and her sister, Lee, were close, the Kennedy and Radziwills also became close.
Every event that is described in the "Jackie" books (ie. Mrs Kennedy and Me, Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot, etc) mentions the Radziwills participating in family events, events like Jack’s infamous 40th birthday party and the Onassis yacht vacation trip.
When I came across this memoir, What Remains, by Carole Radziwill, wife of Lee Radiwill’s son Anthony, I was confused for a bit at the connection between Caroline Kennedy (John Jr Kennedy’s wife) and the author, Carole Radziwill, but then it hit me. Of course! John Jr Kennedy and Anthony Radziwill are first cousins. It makes sense that they were close and likewise their respective wives would be close.
What I didn't anticipate upon reading memoir was the powerful and intimate story that Carole Radziwill would tell. The players are famous, yes, but the tale is unerringly human.
The memoir begins on the night of the doomed flight that John Kennedy Jr would make with his wife of 3 years, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister, Lauren. At the time of the crash, the author’s husband, Anthony Radziwill, was dying from cancer from which he had suffered for over five years.
Carole Radziwill pivots back in time and tells of her upbringing, her career (she was an ABC journalist who worked with Peter Jennings) and her meeting and romance with Anthony Radziwill. The relationship with Radziwill and his cancer diagnosis (the cancer was present from the beginnings of their marriage) is described in painstaking and riveting detail. The author does a fantastic job here and her prose is deliberate, heartbreaking and honest.
The juxtaposition of both her husband's final weeks and the Kennedy tragedy is heartbreaking, cruel, and particularly poignant.
This is one of those books that stays with you. Days after I finished it, I was still thinking about it.
You have a foursome, a group of friends, all dreading the death of one of them and yet, tragically, the ones in the foursome who are fullest of life are plucked away in an instant. What the heck? And THEN, there’s only one survivor after the author suffers the loss of her husband shortly after the loss of her friends. How much can one person take? And Why?
The tragedy of the horrific crash screams “Why?” What does this tragic example tell us about life and its fragility and cruelty? I hope you feel as I do that the backdrop of Martha’s Vineyard is particularly descriptive of beaches everywhere and as the summer closes this memoir might be a way to ease into the fall.
Analysis
Hooks: the author is famous, the cousin of the author’s husband, John F Kennedy Jr and his wife are famous, the horrific event is a well known tragedy but the behind the scenes is not as ubiquitous.
Genre: memoir, cancer, female career in male-dominated industry, lives of the rich and famous, heck: Kennedy is it’s own genre
Writing Style: Radziwill writes in a conversational style. She starts with the inciting incident and goes back to her beginnings. She is a great writer and holds the reader’s interest.
Let me know what you think of it in the comments.
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