Read This, Too

McMumsy and I are starting to get the same taste in books. While I still could never make my way through a massive bio of Teddy Roosevelt (and she'll go through it in a weekend) she's going to read Joan Didion's latest, on my recommendation, and she gave me What Remains, Carole Radziwill's story about her marriage to Anthony Radziwill, cousin to and best friend of, JFK Jr.

My mother is a wee bit obsessed with the Kennedys. I say wee because her real obsessions are politics and dead presidents. She used to feed that one by making us go to presidents' residences for vacation. I've been to so many that they swim before me. Although Monticello was pretty neat.

Some of her Kennedy obsession was passed down to me -- she was reading a book on them when she went into labor with me -- and Radziwill's book delivers the Kennedy goods. She paints Carolyn Bessette as a pretty swell person. The book is also fucking sad -- JFK Jr. and Carolyn, her best friend -- die two weeks before her husband loses his life to the cancer he's been battling their entire marriage.

Carole Radziwill is one tough cookie, raised in part by a big fat grandma who used to shove roasts between her tatas at the grocery store and who grew pot in the backyard to make extra cash.