Publishers Weekly
11/08/2021
Journalist Thompson (Hurricane Season) delivers an illuminating look at the earliest years of the Kennedy family in America. Thompson traces the family’s U.S. roots back to Bridget Murphy (c. 1825–1888), who left Ireland for Boston in the late 1840s and found work as a servant before marrying fellow countryman Patrick Kennedy. They had five children before Patrick died of consumption in 1858. Instead of returning to domestic service, Murphy became “a proper wage earner, an entrepreneur, and even a landlord, at a time when most women needed a husband’s permission and a special license to open a business.” The skills she acquired—and the money she lent him—benefited her only surviving son, P.J., whose career as a saloon owner, liquor importer, and Democratic party boss made him “one of the wealthiest and most influential men on the island of East Boston.” P.J.’s successes paved the way, in turn, for his son, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., to make his fortune as an investor and film producer and help establish the political careers of his sons John, Robert, and Ted. Thompson is especially good at evoking the hardships Murphy endured and placing them in the context of the 19th-century Irish experience. The result is an engrossing, real-life rags-to-riches tale. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Here is that rare thing: an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga. Neal Thompson has given us a compelling and illuminating book about one of the most important families in our history—a family that represents so much about America then. And now.” — Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winner and #1 New York Times best-selling author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
“Here is the chaos, claustrophobia, tragedy, and triumph of immigrant America told through one city and one iconic family. Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the Kennedys, along comes Neal Thompson with this brilliant re-creation of the Irish diaspora succeeding in a city that for many years would not allow them to be part of the American story. It’s great storytelling.” — Timothy Egan, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author of The Immortal Irishman
“Compelling … ranks with the richly evocative work of Doris Kearns Goodwin and Thomas H. O’Connor.” — Boston Globe
“Thompson’s impressive research and engaging exposition create a unique addition to the Kennedy canon. This is not just the story of the Kennedys; Thompson paints a picture of life for many Irish immigrants. History buffs should pick up this book immediately.” — Booklist
“Drawing on archival material, contemporary publications, and family papers where sources about the Kennedys’ early years are scant, Thompson provides solid historical context about the plight of Irish immigrants, roiling national politics, and changing demographics … A lively biography of an iconic family before it became famous.” — Kirkus Reviews
“To understand the unforgettable stories of Jack and Bobby, Eunice, Ted, and the rest of their celebrated generation of Kennedys, we have to understand the stories of their extraordinary great-grandparents and grandparents. Now, thanks to Neal Thompson, we can. Read all about it in The First Kennedys.” — Larry Tye, author of Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon
“A fresh, engrossing, and profoundly relatable look at a family that everyone thinks they know. Crafting a saga elevated by dogged research and transporting prose, Neal Thompson casts the humble beginnings of an American dynasty into surprising and penetrating light. Unforgettable.” — Denise Kiernan, New York Times best-selling author of The Last Castle and The Girls of Atomic City
“Bridget Kennedy, JFK’s grandmother, achieved the American dream, but her story has been buried in patriarchal lore. No more. In this fascinating book, Neal Thompson gives Bridget her due—and in the process, makes us reconsider JFK’s origin story.” — Alexis Coe, historian and New York Times best-selling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington
“Neal Thompson’s The First Kennedys is both a profound portrait of the immigrant experience and an intimate look at the origins of an American dynasty. Deeply researched, intricately layered, and written in sparkling prose, this is narrative history at its finest." — Karen Abbott, New York Times best-selling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park and Sin in the Second City
“I thought everything had been written about the Kennedy family, but Neal Thompson has proven me wrong. He has entered into the early years of the Kennedys and brought forth a stunning, intimate tale of the American family that fascinates us beyond all others.” — Laurence Leamer, New York Times best-selling author of The Kennedy Women and The Kennedy Men
"An engrossing, real-life rags-to-riches tale." — Publishers Weekly
“Splendidly heterodox … Thompson brilliantly illuminates the strain of Mariolatry in the Kennedys that Bridget embodied.” — Airmail
“Winsomely written … both an absorbing family story and a saga of the Irish diaspora in Boston.” — Library Journal
Timothy Egan
Here is the chaos, claustrophobia, tragedy, and triumph of immigrant America told through one city and one iconic family. Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the Kennedys, along comes Neal Thompson with this brilliant re-creation of the Irish diaspora succeeding in a city that for many years would not allow them to be part of the American story. It’s great storytelling.”
Jon Meacham
Here is that rare thing: an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga. Neal Thompson has given us a compelling and illuminating book about one of the most important families in our history—a family that represents so much about America then. And now.”
Boston Globe
Compelling … a chronicle ranks with the richly evocative work of Doris Kearns Goodwin and Thomas H. O’Connor.
Denise Kiernan
A fresh, engrossing, and profoundly relatable look at a family that everyone thinks they know. Crafting a saga elevated by dogged research and transporting prose, Neal Thompson casts the humble beginnings of an American dynasty into surprising and penetrating light. Unforgettable.”
Laurence Leamer
I thought everything had been written about the Kennedy family, but Neal Thompson has proven me wrong. He has entered into the early years of the Kennedys and brought forth a stunning, intimate tale of the American family that fascinates us beyond all others.
Karen Abbott
Neal Thompson’s The First Kennedys is both a profound portrait of the immigrant experience and an intimate look at the origins of an American dynasty. Deeply researched, intricately layered, and written in sparkling prose, this is narrative history at its finest."
Alexis Coe
Bridget Kennedy, JFK’s grandmother, achieved the American dream, but her story has been buried in patriarchal lore. No more. In this fascinating book, Neal Thompson gives Bridget her due—and in the process, makes us reconsider JFK’s origin story.”
Larry Tye
To understand the unforgettable stories of Jack and Bobby, Eunice, Ted, and the rest of their celebrated generation of Kennedys, we have to understand the stories of their extraordinary great-grandparents and grandparents. Now, thanks to Neal Thompson, we can. Read all about it in The First Kennedys.”
Airmail
Splendidly heterodox … Thompson brilliantly illuminates the strain of Mariolatry in the Kennedys that Bridget embodied.
Library Journal
★ 01/01/2022
Journalist Thompson (Kickflip Boys) may surprise both general readers and historians with a Kennedy book based on newly accessible materials and differently focused on the family's first members in the United States: John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Irish immigrant paternal great grandparents. Benefiting from the papers in the Kennedy Library of P.J. Kennedy (the only surviving son of Bridget Murphy Kennedy and her husband Patrick) as well as digital ancestry databases, this winsomely written book employs cultural context, empathy, multiple viewpoints, and careful evaluation of sources. Central are the entrepreneurial, too-soon widowed, resilient matriarch Bridget and her equally risk-taking youngest child P.J. With more street than book smarts, he went from working in shops and saloons to holding local elected office, navigating fluctuating Prohibition laws, and overcoming antipathy to his ethnicity and religion. Thompson notes that Catholics protested hegemonic American Protestant-dominated schools, often countering with their own. As for the Fitzgerald family, the author concentrates on "Honey Fitz" (JFK Jr.'s maternal grandfather, the mayor of Boston) and culminates with the marriage of JFK Jr.'s parents, Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald. VERDICT This is both an absorbing family story and a saga of the Irish diaspora in Boston, a city that eventually accepted the Kennedys and allowed the ambitious family to achieve versions of the American dream before fate intervened.—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.
Kirkus Reviews
2021-11-20
The Kennedys before Joseph and Rose.
Journalist Thompson, grandson of Irish immigrants, digs into the history of the family, beginning with the two who left Ireland to seek a new life in America: Bridget Murphy and Patrick Kennedy. In the 1840s, adventurous Bridget was driven by “a craving to leave the safety of habit and family and fling herself among strangers toward a strange new land.” Undaunted by a tough job market and the hostility of native Bostonians, Bridget found work as a domestic, to which she returned between pregnancies after she married the handsome Patrick. The couple managed on Patrick’s earnings as a barrel maker, but when he died of consumption in 1858, Bridget, in her mid-20s, struggled to support her four young children. A maid’s earnings would hardly suffice, so she became a hairdresser at an upscale department store, saved enough to become a grocer, and, by 1865, was a landlady for her own property. Patrick J. (1858-1929), her youngest child and only son, inherited her drive and resourcefulness. Restless as a laborer, he saw the business potential of liquor. By the time he was 23, he had a liquor license with a saloon that attracted local pols. Soon, he was tapped to run for election to Boston’s Democratic Ward and City Committee and, at 27, won election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he served five terms before moving to the state Senate. Among his business ventures was the establishment of the Columbia Trust Company, a bank that later launched the career of his son Joseph Patrick Kennedy. Thompson offers a cursory overview of Joe, Rose, and their children, devoting his attention to their forebears. Drawing on archival material, contemporary publications, and family papers where sources about the Kennedys’ early years are scant, Thompson provides solid historical context about the plight of Irish immigrants, roiling national politics, and changing demographics.
A lively biography of an iconic family before it became famous.
