品牌：
基本信息
·出版社：Doubleday Books
·页码：736 页码
·出版日：2004年
·ISBN：9780385503242
·条码：9780385503242
·装帧：精装
内容简介
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They have wielded enormous financial power and dominated world politics for more than half a century. They have been appointed to positions of great power and have been elected as governors, congressmen, senators and presidents. They have shaped our past and, with our country at war under the leadership of their number one son, they are, more critically than ever, shaping our future.
As the Bush family has risen to dominance, so too they have been master orchestrators of their own public image, acting and operating under the shield of privacy their money and status have always afforded them. Until now.
Number One bestselling author and investigative biographer Kitty Kelley has closely examined the lives of Jacqueline Onassis, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra, and the British Royal family. Now the First Lady of unauthorized biography reckons with the first family of the United States—and the result is at once a rich and shocking history and a very human portrait of the world’s most powerful dynasty.
An important work on wealth, power, and class in America,The Familyis rich in texture, probing in its psychological insight, revealing in its political and financial detail, and stunning in the patterns that emerge and expose the Bush dynasty as it has never before been exposed. Ms. Kelley takes us back to the origins of the family fortune in the Ohio steel industry at the turn of the last century, through the oil deals and international business associations that have maintained and increased their wealth over the past hundred years. The book leads us through Prescott Bush’s first entrée into government at the state level in 1950s’ Connecticut, to George Herbert Walker Bush’s long and winding road to the White House, to his son’s quick sweep into the same office. Along the way, we see the complex relationships the Bushes have had with the giants of the century—Eisenhower, Nixon, Joseph McCarthy, Kissinger, Reagan, Clinton—as well as the often ruthless methods used to realize their goals.
Perhaps most impressive—and surprising—is the way the book delves behind the obsessively protected public image into the family’s intimate private lives: the matriarchs, the mistresses, the marriages, the divorces, the jealousies, the hypocrisies, the golden children, and the black sheep.
At a crucial point in American history, Kitty Kelley is the one person to finally tell all about the family that has, perhaps more than any other, defined our role in the modern world. This is the book the Bushes don’t want you to read. This isThe Family.
作者简介
Kitty Kelleyis the internationally acclaimed bestselling author ofJackie Oh!;Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star;His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra;Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography; andTheRoyals. The last three titles were all #1 on theNew York Timesbestseller list. Ms. Kelley has been honored by her peers with such awards as the Outstanding Author Award from the American Society of Jouranlists and Authors, the Philip M. Stern Award, and the Medal of Merit from the Lotos Club of New York City. Her articles have appeared in theNew York Times, theWashington Post, theWall Street Journal,Newsweek,People,Ladies Home Journal,McCall’s, theLos Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her physician husband, Jonathan Zucker.
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书评
Amazon.com
Kitty Kelley, author of exhaustive and highly unflattering biographies ofFrank Sinatra,Jackie Onassis, and theBritish royal family, among others, has never received much cooperation from her subjects. Likewise, none was given forThe First Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, and it's not hard to understand why. In the book, the family that has produced two presidents as well as an assortment of other politicians, businesspeople, and a number of lesser-known black sheep is portrayed as a powerful empire that leverages wealth and influence to grow ever stronger while stringently covering up numerous instances of drug abuse, infidelity, poor judgment, and scandal. While charges about George W. Bush, including that he snorted cocaine at Camp David while his father was president, garnered the most attention upon the book's release, Kelley's history goes back several generations, detailing the rise to power of Senator Prescott Bush and his son, the first President Bush. Those seeking a salacious peek at the inner sanctum of a wealthy and powerful family will not be disappointed byThe First Family--Kelley always delivers on that count--and will likely devour allegations of Barbara Bush's sour temperament, George H.W. Bush's long-standing affair with aide Jennifer Fitzgerald, and George W. Bush's obnoxious drunken frat boy days that stretched, according to Kelley, well into adulthood. Those seeking a rock-solid and airtight indictment of the Bushes, however, will be disappointed, since Kelley leans on anonymous sources and rumors for some of the juicier bits. Interestingly, although it tells the stories of a family built on politics,The First Familymostly avoids the subject, clearing the decks of all political substance in order to put the style on wider display.--John Moe
From Publishers Weekly
Although hardly the most authoritative or the most carefully written, Kelley’s history of the Bush family nonetheless ranks among the most important books of the 2004 political season. A large part of Kelley’s influence comes, of course, from the success of her previous celebrity biographies, among them Jackie Oh!, The Royals and Elizabeth Taylor. But another part comes from her willingness to commit rumors to paper—in other words, to share DC cocktail-party gossip with the masses. Her book will come under a lot of fire for this practice, and with some reason. Many of her most incendiary comments—that Laura Bush was once a "go-to girl for dime bags," that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David—do appear to be poorly sourced. And as the book progresses from the 1860s to the 2000s, her moderate tone often rises with vividly expressed disgust and indignation. But readers who take Kelley’s dishy allegations with a grain of salt will still find plenty of hard evidence to support her portrayal of the Bush family’s political opportunism, economic privilege and shrewd flip-flopping. Case in point: when George H.W. Bush was chosen as Reagan’s running mate in 1980, he suddenly "dropped his support of the Equal Rights Amendment and vehemently changed his position on abortion." Kelley also takes shots at Democrats Edward Kennedy, Lloyd Bentsen and Lyndon Johnson, and generally laments what she sees as the Republican Party’s turn to the far right. But, overall, her real issues appear to be the same as in her previous books: the abuse of power, the adoption of a false public image, the secreting away of sexual and pharmaceutical peccadilloes. With its focus on these juicy issues, and its occasional nuggets of serious political history, Kelley’s book is sure to gratify her many fans.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
FromThe New Yorker
Kelley's reputation as an "unauthorized biographer" precedes her—how many authors feel the need to mention that they've "never lost a lawsuit"?—and she is best appreciated less as an investigative journalist than as a folklorist, amassing a compendium of gossip (much of it denied by her subjects). Generations of Bushes have given her plenty of material. She presents Prescott, the alcoholic senator who beat his children; George H.W., the tightfisted husband with a mink-clad mistress; and a supporting cast of uncles and brothers embroiled with dictators and Japanese Mafiosi. There is Barbara's grudge-bearing (a streak so mean one feels almost sorry for Nancy Reagan), Laura's reputation as a college drug source, and ex-daughter-in-law Sharon's tales (since recanted) of cocaine at Camp David. Capping it all is George W., who—from financial shadiness and substance abuse to a suspect military record and a blithe confidence that he deserves all he has been given and more—is portrayed not as the family's black sheep but as the epitome of its values.
Copyright © 2005The New Yorker
FromAudioFile
In a couple of years the Bush family saga could likely become a television series, in the style of "Dynasty" or "Dallas." It's got major powerbrokers, scandal, intrigue, and heartbreak. For those who can't wait and are happy just listening, Kitty Kelley's reading is breezy, melodic, and unencumbered by literary pretense. Many of the "sensational" revelations will be familiar to students of Bush family enterprises; however, there are few compendiums that follow the evolution of the family's particular political style over time. Many may object to this gossipy narrative's no-holds-barred approach, but at least there's no sanctimony. J.W. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine--Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to theAudio CDedition.
FromBooklist
Anyone who has ever read Kitty Kelley knows what to expect: a dishy story, poorly sourced, but with a definite point of view. No surprises here. Kelley's premise is that the Bush clan has succeeded in portraying themselves as an all-American family when they are actually snooty, snotty, vindictive, and petty (dishy enough?). In making her point, Kelley provides a wealth of anecdotes, most from secondary sources, some from anonymous sources, and a few from people brave enough to admit they don't like the Bushes. Most of the book, surprisingly, focuses not on George W. Bush but on his parents--with plenty of attention also given to George H. W.'s parents, Senator Prescott Bush and his wife, Dorothy. The most explosive of the charges (drug use by both Laura and George W.) already has received plenty of play in the press (no advance galleys were distributed for this book), but none of the reviews thus far have bothered to notice that Kelley does the most damage with a thousand smaller but more telling cuts--everything from George W.'s foul mouth to Barbara's abrasiveness (her sons apparently call her "the nutcracker") to Laura's obliviousness. The book is compulsively readable, although if one pauses for breath, it's quickly apparent that Kelley is no stylist: she jumps from one subject to another with sentences that lack even a hint of connective tissue. Moreover, even the identified quotes are impossible to trace because, for each chapter, Kelley only offers a massive list of books and magazines. The book ends abruptly, too, as if the author couldn't write one more insulting word about the Bushes. Even Bush haters should stick with Schweizer'sThe Bushes: A Portrait of a Dynasty[BKL F 1 04], a much better and more solidly sourced book.Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"This is a story of power, sex and betrayal--but mostly of power." –The New York Times Book Review
"A thoroughly researched piece of work. Ms. Kelley clearly devoured and digested the extant literature on the family." –The New York Times
"Kelley's account of the rise and fall of the Bush family is both inspirational and cautionary. She convincingly shows that good looks, energy, athleticism, ambition, felicitous marriages and social networking can compensate for intellectual ordinariness." –The Washington Post Book World
"The Family. . . has left few stones unturned. . . . Kelley has brought new information to bear on a family that, for better or worse, deserves her kind of royal treatment." –The New York Times Book Review
"A sweeping indictment of the mind-set of the [Bush] family, that they grew up feeling that this was their due." –Garry Trudeau,The Charlie Rose Show
"Despite the best efforts of the media, the public is gaining insight into their president as the facts leak out and as Kitty Kelley'sThe Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, tops the sales chart." –Newsday
"Kelley nails the evidence and, although the secretive Bush family will not like it, demonstrates beyond doubt what the American press dared not print." –The Guardian
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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