White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port

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Impeccably researchedcaptivating! Elin Hilderbrand * A well-paced history. The New York Times Book Review * Fascinatingwith new details and well-sourced reporting. Associated Press

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! The intimate, multigenerational story of the Kennedy family as seen through their Hyannis Port compound on Cape Codthe iconic place where theyve celebrated, mourned, and bondedbased on more than a hundred in-depth interviews by a Rolling Stone editor and journalist Kate Storey.

Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, is synonymous with the Kennedy family. It is where, for a hundred years, Americas most storied political family has come to celebrate, bond, play, and grieve. It is also the setting of so many events we remember: JFK giving his presidential acceptance speech, Jackie speaking with a Life magazine reporter just days after her husbands assassination, Senator Edward Kennedy seeking refuge after the Chappaquiddick crash, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger tying the knotand even Conor Kennedy courting pop star Taylor Swift. Anyone who has lived in, worked at, or visited the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port has had a front-row view to history. Now, with extraordinary access to the Kennedy familyand featuring more than fifty rarely-seen imagesjournalist Kate Storey gives us a remarkably intimate and poignant look at the rhythms of an American dynasty.

Drawing from a wealth of conversations with family members, friends, neighbors, household and security staff, Storey delivers a rich and textured account of the Kennedys lives in their summer refuge. From the 1920s, when Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy rented then bought a home known as The Malcolm Cottage, to today, when many Kennedys have purchased their own homes surrounding whats now called The Big House, this book delivers many surprising revelations across the decades, including what matriarch Rose considered the familys greatest tragedy, the rivalrous relationship between brothers Jack and Joe, details about Jackies life at the compound, and previously unknown glimpses into JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessettes loving and ill-fated relationship.

Engaging andintimate anecdotes that often stand in contrast to predominant, media-created perceptions...Readers will come away with new insights and due appreciation for this uniquely American dynasty (Booklist, starred review).

Reviews

Town & Country's #1 Must-Read Book for the Summer
AnEllemagazine Most Anticipated Book of the Summer

A well-paced history...Storey has shaken a lot of archival trees and has embedded herself within the surviving Kennedy family...Arevealing record.
New York Times Book Review
A fascinating narrative...with new details and well-sourced reporting.Storey's research gives the book a more intimate feel than many other histories of the Kennedy family.
Associated Press
Journalist Kate Storey turns her sights to Cape Cod in this revealing portrait of the Kennedy familys iconic Hyannis Port home, and the stories its walls have contained over the decades. Constructed from more than a hundred intimate interviews and dozens of photos,White House by the Seais a thorough, absorbing volume of love, fame and that most complicated of American families.
Ellemagazine
[A] thoughtful and astute history. Storey has found a genuinely fresh historical angle. With an abundance of anecdotes...a bittersweet nostalgia moves through some of the chapters like a light mist off Nantucket Sound.
WBUR
A treasure trove of interesting, amusing, and poignant stories and anecdotes of the dynamic, tightknit, and consequential clanAppropriately enough, the book makes for great beach reading, as breezy as the summer air off Nantucket Sound."
Kirkus Reviews
Engaging and factual, capturing personal nuances and relaying intimate anecdotes that often stand in contrast to predominant, media-created perceptions...Readers will come away with new insights and due appreciation for this uniquely American dynasty.
Booklist (starred review)
An immersive behind-the-scenes historyFull of vivid profiles and intriguing asides about the history of Cape Cod, this is a compassionate portrait of Americas most famous political dynasty.
Publishers Weekly
A resplendentstirring of nostalgiaCape Cod has never had a book worthy of its romance with the Kennedys, nor have the Kennedys had one that does justice to their courtship with the peninsulathey transformed into America's Playgrounduntil now. Thanks, Kate Storey, for telling so well a story of who we were in a simpler era, and for making so clear why that story remains so resonant.
Larry Tye,New York Timesbestselling author ofBobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon
Impeccably researched, Kate Storey'sWhite House by the Seais an irresistible invitation to spend time with America's First Family over decades of magical summertimes. Captivating!
Elin Hilderbrand, author ofThe Hotel Nantucket
From touch football on the sprawling lawn to sailing adventures on the Nantucket Sound, to barefoot ice cream runs and steaming thermoses of clam chowder, this is the Kennedy clan at their most private. With a unique angle and chock full of new detail, Kate StoreysWhite House by the Seais a rare peek behind the hedges and fences of Hyannis Port, weaving tales of triumph and despair to render a complex generational portrait of a family built on love and ambition but torn asunder by success and competition.
Julie Satow, author ofThe Plaza: The Secret Life of Americas Most Famous Hotel

Author Bio

Kate Storey is the senior features editor atRolling Stone. She was previously a staff writer atEsquire, where she covered culture and politics, and has written long-form profiles and narrative features forVanity Fair,Marie Claire,Town & Country, and other publications. She lives with her family in New Jersey.