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In this landmark autobiography, five years in the making, Senator Edward M. Kennedy tells his extraordinary personal story -- of his legendary family, politics, and fifty years at the center of national events.

The youngest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, he came of age among siblings from whom much was expected. As a young man, he played a key role in the presidential campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy, recounted here in loving detail. In 1962 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he began a fascinating political education and became a legislator.

In this historic memoir, Ted Kennedy takes us inside his family, re-creating life with his parents and brothers and explaining their profound impact on him. For the first time, he describes his heartbreak and years of struggle in the wake of their deaths. Through it all, he describes his work in the Senate on the major issues of our time -- civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the quest for peace in Northern Ireland -- and the cause of his life: improved health care for all Americans, a fight influenced by his own experiences in hospitals.

His life has been marked by tragedy and perseverance, a love of family, and an abiding faith. There have been controversies, too, and Kennedy addresses them with unprecedented candor. At midlife, embattled and uncertain if he would ever fall in love again, he met the woman who changed his life, Victoria Reggie Kennedy. Facing a tough reelection campaign against an aggressive challenger named Mitt Romney, Kennedy found a new voice and began one of the great third acts in American politics, sponsoring major legislation, standing up for liberal principles, and making the pivotal endorsement of Barack Obama for president.

Hundreds of books have been written about the Kennedys. True Compass will endure as the definitive account from a member of America's most heralded family, an inspiring legacy to readers and to history, and a deeply moving story of a life like no other.

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Publishers Weekly Review

In bringing Kennedy's sweeping memoir to life, John Bedford Lloyd conveys an intimacy and sincerity that allows for reverence without idolatry. Lloyd does his best work in conveying the Lion of the Senate's introspective musings on family, faith, and loss, but his portrayals of such figures as former presidents Carter and Reagan lapse into caricatures. Bonus features include a video interview, largely a summary of the book's contents, though still priceless from the standpoint of historical posterity. The PDF of photographs offers a rather impressive visual resource spanning the time period of Kennedy's narrative. A Twelve hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 5). (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Beginning with the appealing cover photograph, in which Ted Kennedy appears against an almost heavenly background, readers will sense that this is a book meant to solidify an image. And that it does. The memoir shapes Kennedy as a happy warrior in the political battlefields and as a stalwart family man in the many permutations of that term: son, brother, father, uncle. Yet, throughout, there is also an uneasiness. His early life was fractured with moves from Massachusetts to Florida and shaped by hero worship of his brothers. As an adult, it's personal tragedy that keeps disrupting his life. He writes eloquently about sailing and the water as a place of peace. But, of course, when his car goes into the water, killing a young woman, the metaphor is twisted. Kennedy's voice emerges powerfully here, and on one level, he discloses much. Certainly, there are family and political anecdotes that will be new to even the most dedicated Kennedyologist. But those looking for insight into family foibles won't find them: There were conversational boundaries in our family, and we respected them. About himself, Kennedy is more forthcoming, at least in describing his emotional state at crucial junctures in his life. Readers get a vivid sense, for example, of the anguish he felt when his brothers were killed, but there is little factual detail. It's as though one can feel the author drawing close to confronting the skeletons in his closet but never quite opening the door. Still, as an up-close look at what happens when the history of a family is intertwined with the history of a country, this is high-interest primary source material.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2009 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Edward M. Kennedy was born in 1932. He was thrown out of Harvard University in 1951 for cheating, but he eventually returned and received a degree in 1956. He also attended the University of Virginia Law School. He was elected to the Senate in 1962, taking the seat that his brother John F. Kennedy had occupied before being elected President, and served for the next 47 years. His legislative achievements included bills to provide health insurance for children of the working poor, the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, abortion clinic access, family leave, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He wrote the following books: My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D. C. and True Compass. He died from brain cancer on August 25, 2009 at the age of 77.

(Bowker Author Biography)