The Importance of Being Kennedy (Paperback)

'Her story has the feeling of being more alive and more revealing than any biography!with energetic pace, witty dialogue and vividly drawn characters' Guardian 'Deftly mingles comedy and sorrow, producing a serious pleasure of a novel that is both poignant and entertaining.' Penny Perrick, Sunday Times 'One of Graham's undoubted strengths is the way she seamlessly blends fact and fiction. Real people, including the cream of British aristocracy, are portrayed with as much colour and verve as the fictional characters. This is an entertaining addition to the Kennedy canon, one that goes behind the public smiles to conjure up the petty jealousies and divided loyalties that plague every family. It also gives a fictional voice to two forgotten women whose troubled lives are almost completely overshadows by the Kennedy legend.' The Herald 'This is a very entertaining, often funny book, thanks to Graham's perceptive eye and deadpan wit.' The Gloss Magazine 'Brilliant novel by Laurie Graham. Narrated by her Irish nursemaid, this is a beautifully observed novel with the humour and candour you'd expect from the author of "The Ten O'Clock Horses".' Bella '"The Importance of Being Kennedy" could just prove the perfect sun-lounger read.' Sunday Business Post 'A vivid, creative storyteller.' Judith Flanders, Times Literary Supplement

A nanny's diary chronicles the goings on of a famous American clan.Having employed a similar voyeuristic technique in Gone with the Windsors (2006), British novelist Graham now turns her attentions to America's analogous imperial family via the remembrances of an observant Irish servant. With nine children under young Nora Brennan's charge and the tough matriarch Rose Kennedy breathing down her neck, it's a wonder Nora has time to put pen to paper. Her account sacrifices the political years, delving instead into the darker days between world wars to explore the peculiar domestic dynamics of the teeming family. Fierce father Joe is portrayed as a whirling dervish with voracious appetites. Rose, meanwhile, is described by the servant girl as having "a heart as hard as the hob of hell." Nora's affections run to slow-witted, disregarded Rosemary and obstinate social butterfly Kathleen, called "Kick." In a lush testimonial, Nora brings readers from the prosperous mansions of Hyannis to the war-torn streets of London, and finally to the eve of Jack's presidential campaign. It's in the book's denouement during World War II that the Kennedy tragedies take root. Jack sustains a wartime injury; Rose becomes the victim of a crippling lobotomy; and prodigal son Joseph succumbs to an early death. Even Nora suffers, sacrificing a chance at marriage and happiness to serve the family she calls "my Kennedys." The tart observations of lives of privilege may take the shine off the Camelot myth, but Graham's book is marked not by ridicule but rather by an elegant, forthright poignancy. A refreshingly nostalgia-free portrayal that breathes life into the Kennedy story. (Kirkus Reviews)

`entertaining...through Nora's exuberant Irish brogue, Graham pays as much attention to the less well-known siblings'.