Teaser Tuesday

Here's how to play.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) 

From the start of Ted Kennedy: A Life by John Farrell, there's a push-pull between the comforts of wealth and privilege and the horror of sudden, violent death. When Ted was just 12, his oldest brother Joe Jr. was blown to bits in an in-air explosion during WWII. By the time he was 16, his brother-in-law Billy had been shot by a Nazi sniper and Billy's wife, Ted's sister Kathleen, went down in a plane crash. Then JFK became the oldest son who carried the family standard to new heights and was assassinated. That left Bobby Kennedy as the oldest son, and within 5 years, he, too, was murdered. So the baby, the ninth and last child, became the head of the family at age of 36. Nothing prepared Teddy for this because it was never supposed to be him. He was not suited by personality or propensity. Yet he was now surrogate father to his brothers' 13 children and the hopes of a heartbroken nation were riding on him. The responsibility was crushing. 

I found this observation from Ted Kennedy's youngest son, Patrick, insightful.

What is of interest to people who might study him is the conflict between who he was supposed to be and who he was. I think who he was, was an amazing, authentic person who loved a good time, who loved people, who was gregarious and social and yet, in a way, felt encumbered by a sense of, "I have to be something else and be serious-minded if I'm to be successful, if I'm to be taken seriously ..."