by Paula Byrne
A biography that treats a forgotten Kennedy as a subject worthy of serious historical attention. Paula Byrne writes with a novelist's eye for character and a historian's rigor, bringing Kick's short, vivid life into sharp focus. It is a story about the cost of independence and the double standards that governed the lives of women in the twentieth century.
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Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy was the fourth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, and the sister of President John F. Kennedy. She was known for her vivacious personality and charm. She moved to England in 1938 when her father became the U.S. Ambassador and later married William Cavendish, the heir to the Duke of Devonshire, against her family's wishes.
Paula Byrne is a British biographer and author. She has written acclaimed biographies of figures including Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, and Dido Belle. She is the founder of ReLit, a charity promoting bibliotherapy. Kick is one of her bestselling works.
Kick died young, at twenty-eight, and her marriage to a Protestant outside the Catholic faith caused a rupture with her family that led to her being somewhat erased from the official Kennedy narrative. Byrne's book aims to restore her to her rightful place in the family's history.
The core of the story is Kick's love affair and marriage to Billy Cavendish. It was a union that pitted her personal happiness against her family's faith and political ambitions, forcing her to choose between the life she wanted and the one she was expected to lead.
It is a work of narrative nonfiction. It combines biography with social history, offering a window into both the Kennedy family and the British aristocracy during the mid-twentieth century.
