The Kennedys have always been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel, living by the dual family mottos: "To whom much is given, much is expected" and "Win at all costs." And they do--but at a price. Patriarch Joe Kennedy Sr., the silver-tongued financier whose backroom mafia deals ensure his family's meteoric rise in politics... will later fall mute from a paralyzing stroke, left with only his memories to comfort--or torment--him. The Kennedy son originally meant to be president is not Jack, but Joe Jr., whose brave impulses lead him to military glory...and a fatally disastrous WWII mission. Jack's beloved sister, Kick, defies Her Catholic parents and marries a Protestant, earning a noble title in the process...only to be widowed a month later. On the morning of June 5, 1968, Bobby saves his young son David from drowning...and that same evening David witnesses his father shot on live TV, less than five years after JFK's cataclysmic assassination. Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have occupied a unique place in the American imagination: charmed, cursed, at once familiar and unknowable. The House of Kennedy is a revealing, fascinating account of America's most storied family, as told by America's most trusted storyteller. --from back cover.