Ted Kennedy: A Life
by John A. Farrell
752 pages
Penguin Press
Published: Oct 2022

Edward Kennedy (1932-2009) was the youngest of nine children and presumed to be the least likely of the four sons to achieve success or sustain the Kennedy brand. Although famously flawed, he was elected to the US Senate at the age of 30 and spent the next 47 years advocating for social justice.

Like Farrell’s biographies of Tip O’Neill and Richard Nixon, this biography is thoughtful, lively and engaging. And despite its 593 pages of text the narrative always moves briskly, rarely covering a topic to the point of exhaustion…