The Skimmer

Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy

By the Team at the Boston Globe Edited by Peter S. Canellos Simon & Schuster; 464 pages

Had the last chapter in Ted Kennedy’s story been written a generation ago, it would have been a cautionary tale: the scandal-scarred prodigal son who, consigned to carrying the torch of America’s foremost political dynasty, extinguished it in the waters of Chappaquiddick Island. But Kennedy found redemption in a stellar second act. As the authors write, “the chubby kid in short pants who was eclipsed for so many years by his brothers” became the clan’s patriarch and a champion of causes ranging from civil rights to health care–a legislative record they rank among the finest of the past century. The Globe’s scribes don’t whitewash Kennedy’s shortcomings, devoting considerable space to his booze-fueled carousing and the car accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne. With Kennedy battling brain cancer, the book–whose title was borrowed from a Churchill biography and bestowed on Ted by John McCain–is a timely if not revelatory portrait of a flawed figure who “never expected to become the custodian of his family’s sorrows” but found a way to transcend the role.

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