Beautiful
An exqusite Providence gave to this life-story a woman with the heart and the skill to tell it beautifully. The friendship of four people comes to us vibrant and growing, and she evokes poignantly the love that united her and her husband--John Kennedy's cousin and the "brother he never had". The most moving line in the entire book is Carole's distraught cry as she knows Anthony is dying, "Call John and Carolyn. I can't go through this alone!" John and Carolyn had died two weeks before.
It is one thing to go through an experience that is both massively tragic and deeply joyful. It is another to have the capacity to re-create with vigor and beauty its people,its circumstances, and its emotional climate. Carole invites us into these intertwined lives and enables us to live with her a love and a friendship that brought her to the extremes of joy and grief. It's the kind of book you hate to come to the end of, because its ending means you will be leaving people you have grown to love.
