Product Description

Jack is both the first comprehensive one-volume biography of JFK and the first account of his life based on the extensive documentary record that has finally become available, including personal diaries, taped conversations from the White House, recently declassified government documents, extensive family correspondence, and crucial interviews sealed for nearly forty years.

Jack provides a much-needed perspective on Kennedy’s bewilderingly complex personality, presents a compelling account of the volatile relationship between Jack and Jackie (including her attempt to divorce him, move to Hollywood, and become a film star), and reveals how JFK forged the modern political campaign and, once in the White House, modernized the presidency.

Jack: A Life Like No Other is a book like no other. Here, at last, John F. Kennedy seems to step off the page in all his vitality, charm, and originality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #762089 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-08
• Released on: 2002-10-08
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.05" w x 5.10" l, .85 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

From Amazon.com
Written with commendable measure, Geoffrey Perret's Jack: A Life Like No Other is an informal but informed cradle-to-grave biography of JFK. Though Perret hardly ignores the intricacies of Kennedy's uneven and truncated presidency--specifically the cold war imbroglios of Southeast Asia, Berlin, and Cuba, as well as intractable domestic festerings of poverty and civil rights--his real interest lies with the man himself. Kennedy, in chronic ill health from childhood, emerges here as a singular and daunting contradiction, at once cautious and impulsive, generous and selfish. He was a brat and a man of the people, an inveterate womanizer and a devoted family man, well-read but hardly intellectual, a charmer with a ferocious temper. Perret's book--utilizing heretofore-unseen documents--is refreshingly candid and felicitously nonjudgmental. Neither hagiographical, mean-spirited, salacious, nor conspiratorial, Jack, rich in anecdotes, is a welcome, evenhanded addition to the Kennedy library. --H. O'Billovitch

From Publishers Weekly
erret (Ulysses S. Grant, etc.) delivers a flawed biography of JFK in which the subject trapped in the crosshairs of shoddy research and poor prose style seems unable to come to life. Perret's machine-like, event-driven narrative delivers one well-known fact after another, but the author repeatedly fails to get close to the normally ingratiating Kennedy. Further, Perret's narrative is too often driven by the few new sources he's been able to discover. Thus due to a recently unearthed travel diary we get every detail concerning JFK's generally uninteresting 1937 tour of Europe. Other of the book's problems stem from sweeping generalizations and various errors of both fact and interpretation. Discussing Joseph Kennedy Sr.'s Wall Street activities, Perret informs readers that "big stock market speculators" were blamed (by whom? the public? the government? the newspapers?) for the 1929 stock market crash. As regards errors of fact, a few include Perret's misquoting the widely known Catholic prayer "Hail Mary," his references to "Catholic ministers" and his assertion that Jack's bad back did not date from childhood (as medical records clearly show). Perret embarks on yet another arguable sidetrack from reality when he asserts that Kennedy who always took great pains to separate his public life from his religious life backed out of a 1948 event involving Protestant ministers after being "ordered" to do so by "the Catholic hierarchy," and then took the unusual step of confessing the same to journalist Drew Pearson. The anecdote, originating with Pearson, deserves scrutiny that Perret does not seem disposed to deliver. And that, sadly, is the story of this book. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct. 30)Forecast: With this title, Laurence Leamer's The Kennedy Men and a couple of titles on Jacqueline Kennedy, it's another big Kennedy season. But how much more do readers want to know about America's almost-royal family? Perhaps a lot first serial rights on this have gone to GQ, and Perret is booked on the Today Show. He will tour N.Y., D.C. and Boston.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The first Catholic and youngest president eve relected, John F. Kennedy has a mystique that continues to fascinate. He captured the imagination of the American public like no other post-World War II political leader and was a generation's hero in life and a nation's icon in death. In this volume, Perret (Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant) seeks to understand, rather than praise or condemn, his subject. He argues that JFK embodied for his era the fantasy male and that he skillfully crafted his own stellar legend, which exceeded even the ambitious dreams of his manipulative parents. A romantic at heart, JFK vowed to live fully during what he believed would be an abbreviated life span. His physical ailments (Addison's disease and back problems), his regular reliance on drugs to deal with those ailments, and his immature sexual behavior were significant influences, but despite such impediments, JFK comes across as a competent and flexible leader. Above all else, he showed imagination at times and learned from his political mistakes. Even among the crowded shelf of Kennedy-related books, this is a genuinely worthwhile biography because it is readable and balanced. A paperback edition would be popular for the classroom. Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.
- William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.