American Son -- Take 2

I have mixed feelings about American Son.

I'll start with the good.  First, true or not (and who, now, can say?), it does paint a picture of Jr. as someone who deeply appreciated the role his family played in the country's modern psyche, and who wanted to do something good with that.  What, exactly?  Again, who can say?  But something.  Second, it appears that John was a kind, thoughtful, and introspective person.  He was not perfect -- apparently he had one heck of a bad temper -- but he did not allow his celebrity to turn him into something horrible.  He was just a man, trying to be a better one.

Now for the bad.  First, this book is a snapshot.  It covers the author's time working with John Kennedy, Jr., at George magazine - John's late-1990s attempt to publish a political magazine for the average reader.  Our author started working there in 1995; John died in 1999.  Surely, it tries to extrapolate out from that time period, but does so with limited success, as John was notoriously tight-lipped about his private life.  Second, as the author himself acknowledges in his note at the end, this book can easily be viewed as opportunistic.  And that is how I viewed it, along with many other people.  It seemed more like the author's opportunity to promote himself, because this is as famous as he would ever be: the executive editor of John-John's magazine.  (This article from the Weekly Standard also points out that Blow [now Bradley] had signed a confidentiality agreement when he started at George.  So much for that.)

It's telling that the good things about the book were the subject himself, and the bad things about the book were the scope and motivations of the author.  Do with that information what you will.