Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

by Maureen Callahan

KICK KENNEDY Kick, full name Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, had been lost to history until the publication of two recent books: Barbara Leaming’s Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter, and Paula Byrne’s Kick: The True Story of JFK’s Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth. Her brief life was a torment thanks to a double standard that allowed her fathers and brothers sexual freedom to the point of depravity, while Kick was punished for falling in love with a Protestant and, later, a married man. Her father was the lone Kennedy to attend her funeral. Kick’s friend, the famous socialite Debo Mitford, was left to write the inscription on Kick’s headstone: “Joy she gave—Joy she has found.”