Symptoms of Withdrawal or Aftermath

Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption

Author: Christopher Kennedy Lawford

The firstborn child of famed Rat Pack actor Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy, sister to John F. Kennedy, Christopher Kennedy Lawford grew up with presidents, senators, and movie stars as close relatives and personal friends. When he was a toddler, Marilyn Monroe taught him how to dance the twist. He recalls being awakened late at night to hear his uncle Jack announce his candidacy for president. His early life was marked by the traumatic assassinations of two beloved uncles—and during his teen years, he succumbed to the tragic allure of the 1970s drug scene.

Symptoms of Withdrawal is Lawford's unflinchingly honest portrayal of his life as a Kennedy—a journey overflowing with hilarious insider anecdotes, heartbreaking accounts of his addictions to narcotics as well as to celebrity, and, ultimately, the redemption he found by asserting his own independence.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

Mr. Lawford packs so much material into one book that a Kennedy-parasite biographer could find a career's worth of stories here. But Symptoms of Withdrawal, for all its tales told out of school, has poignant legitimacy. Mr. Lawford may have had to exploit his relatives to get his story published, but he has found a way to step out of their long shadow. His book is sunlit in this way too.

Publishers Weekly

Pity the poor shelver who has to decide where to put this book. Does it go with the wall full of Kennedyana, the tell-alls and critiques of the family America loves to hate and hates to love? Or does it go into the ever increasing "recovery" section of the memoir department, packed as it is with tales of debauchery, and finally, painful and hard-won sobriety? Because this offering, by the 50-year-old nephew of President Kennedy, son of the late actor Peter Lawford, and cousin of the late American prince, JFK Jr. (how's that for a legacy to live with?), is both of those things, it is hard to categorize, and harder to resist. There's plenty of dish here, even if it is dish of the gentle, almost old-fashioned variety. (Lawford tells of being taught to do the twist by Marilyn Monroe; of spying, as a 10-year-old, on a former First Lady taking a bath, of partying with Kennedys and Lennons and Jaggers.) But it is also a palpably painful and moving rendition of bad behavior with women and money and drugs, and 20 years of staying sober. If you've read any recovery lit, you already know the drill: the stories of lying and charming and messing up school, jobs and relationships. There's plenty of that, but in Lawford's case, the backdrop against which he misbehaved is in itself dramatic. He writes achingly of his relationship with his cousin David, RFK's son, with whom he regularly did drugs and who died in a Palm Beach hotel room in 1984. (Lawford broke with Kennedy family tradition and named his son for David.) When he arrives high at a family party, the photographic proof turns up in the newspaper-because it was a fundraiser for his uncle Teddy. If this were somebody with a less famous-for-carousing name, you might think he was just another self-dramatizing alcoholic; as it is, Lawford is clearly just recounting his life. Even so, he could come off as obnoxious-were it not for his frankness, humor and self-awareness. Lawford goes out of his way to own, as they say in recovery, his behavior, and while he acknowledges a family tendency, he blames no one but himself. He can also write knowingly and self-deprecatingly about his competitive relationships with his many cousins, his vanity as an actor (he has appeared in films including The Russia House and Mr. North, as well as many television programs but is, by his own admission, no Tom Cruise), and his tendency to refer to his many female conquests as "the most beautiful girl in the world." So where does this book belong? Does it matter? You don't have to care about Kennedys to find this a moving tale of self-discovery and redemption. Whatever else he may have been-son, nephew, cousin, etc.-Christopher Lawford shows himself here to be a writer of talent and grace. 32 pages of photos. (Oct.) Sara Nelson is the Editor-in-Chief of PW. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Born into wealth and favor as the son of Rat Pack actor Peter Lawford and JFK's sister Patricia, 50-year-old Lawford writes an engaging memoir of privilege, struggle, and recovery. The privilege meant growing up among such Hollywood elite as Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe and on the Washington scene among the Kennedys. All the while, he was trying to find his own identity. But in his dysfunctional family, bonding with dad included receiving a vial of cocaine for his birthday. Lawford writes about his struggle with and recovery from the oblivion of alcohol and drug addiction, an "800-pound gorilla" made heavier by his family legacy. For Lawford and cousin David (RFK's son), being anonymous panhandlers and heroin junkies was sometimes easier than being Kennedys. After David was found dead of an overdose in 1984, Lawford's aunt, Joan Kennedy, brought him to a church basement, where he was disabused of his professed "terminal uniqueness" as he listened to others share strikingly similar tales of addiction. (He has maintained his sobriety for 20 years.) Thoughtful, honest, and at times humorous, Lawford's memoir is recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/05.]-Patti C. McCall, Albany Molecular Research, Inc., NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A rare and worthy first-person glimpse into the pitfalls of being a Kennedy, complete with instructions on how to step into the deepest hole available, from the son of Patricia Kennedy and actor Peter Lawford. "I was given wealth, power, and fame when I drew my first breath. Now what?" asks Lawford, admitting that he "failed to take advantage of any of them." The "what" was booze and drugs in quantities that would make even the most hardened liver quail. But you could hardly blame him. Here was a guy whose first stop before being brought home from the hospital was a bar so his parents could grab a drink (they'd already had a few while still in the hospital, of course). Lawford's memoir zeroes in on his shabby, feckless behavior until he was in his 30s, but it can't help revealing all sorts of minutiae of the kind craved by Kennedy-watchers. The story covers his mother's proprietary relationship with her family; the divorce that threw him in among his maternal relatives; life with Uncle Bobby; the daily protocols of Hyannis Port; what it meant to suffer the wrath of Big E (Ethel); how it felt to have family members murdered while the rest of the world described the deaths as assassinations. In a natural, jazzy voice, Lawford describes his years of "better living through chemistry," which beveled the edges of neglect and failed expectations until it became the 800-pound gorilla riding his back, queering his prospects and turning his life to trash amidst the grandeur. It wasn't easy for Lawford to get straight; consequences included alienation, divorce and crying children-the same things his parents had inflicted on him. Classier than the usual tell-all: an honest account of a personalpilgrimage through privileged self-destruction.

Go to: Gold or Killer Mousse

Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive

Author: Joel Meyerowitz

After the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11th 2001, the world-renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz felt compelled to visit the site. In his own words, he was 'overcome by a deep impulse to help, to save, to soothe, but, being far away, there was nothing I could do.' On his return Meyerowitz soon made his way to the scene where, upon raising his camera, he was reminded by a police officer that this was a crime scene and that no photographs were allowed. Meyerowitz duly left the scene but within a few blocks the officer's reminder had turned into consciousness. To Meyerowitz, 'no photographs meant no history' and he decided at that moment to find a way in and make an archive for the City of New York.

Within days he had established strong links with many of the firefighters, policemen and construction workers contributing to the clean up. With their assistance he became the only photographer to be granted unimpeded access to Ground Zero. Once there he systematically began to document the wreckage followed by the necessary demolition, excavation and removal of tens of thousands of tonnes of debris that would transform the site from one of total devastation to level ground. Soon after the Museum of the City of New York officially engaged Meyerowitz to create an archive of the destruction and recovery at Ground Zero. The 9/11 Photographic Archive numbers in excess of 5,000 images and will become part of the permanent collections of the Museum of the City of New York.

Meyerowitz takes a meditative stance toward the work and workers at Ground Zero, methodically recording the painful work of rescue, recovery, demolition and excavation. His pictures succinctly convey the magnitude of the destruction and loss and the heroic nature of the response. The images included here are a combination of prints from a large format camera, which allows for the greater detail, and standard 35mm, a format which provided Meyerowitz with the freedom to move easily around the site and capture each moment as it happened.

The remarkable pictures in the archive visually relate the catastrophic destruction of the 9/11 attacks and the physical and human dimensions of the recovery effort. The aim of this book is to provide record of the extraordinary extent of the World Trade Center attacks and to documents the recovery efforts. The book will serve as both a poignant elegy to those who lost their lives and as a celebration of the tireless determination of those left behind to reclaim and rebuild the area known as 'Ground Zero'.

Twenty eight of the images in from the archive were displayed in New York and then in over fifty cities around the world in a travelling exhibition entitled After September 11: Images from Ground Zero.

The New York Times - Jonathan Mahler

Looking through Aftermath, one sees these men and women -- sometimes working alone, sometimes in clusters -- bearing the nation's collective grief as they gradually restore order to chaos. Their grim task notwithstanding, the effect is uplifting. They are not just knocking down the vestigial shells of half-destroyed buildings and clearing away mountains of metal, they are reclaiming this hallowed ground, making it possible once again to imagine a future there.

Library Journal

This large book, measuring 15.8" 11.2" 1.5" inches and weighing 8.45 pounds, chronicles the massive efforts to clean up the debris and human remains surrounding the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. At the time, noted photographer Meyerowitz was out of New York City but immediately attempted to return to his home. However, no one was being granted reentry for five days; to boot, the site had been labeled a "crime scene." Yet with the pulling of some strings, he was permitted access to what became known as Ground Zero and took numerous large-format color photographs of the ravaged landscape over the next nine months. The book begins with a series of breathtaking cityscapes, with the Twin Towers prominent in the skyline. Readers then encounter photographs grouped in four sections: "History in the Making," "Fall," "Winter," and "Spring." A feeling of stunned reverence pervades these images, which collectively constitute an exhaustive archive of the aftermath of the attacks. Among the broad panoramas, Meyerowitz portrays dedicated workers, who offer a feeling of hope, at least in the sense that the worst crimes, even atrocities, often bring out the best in many people. Following the cycle of seasons, the book concludes with a plan for the site and indexes. Meyerowitz contributes a long, poignant essay that opens the book and then threads its way through the layout of the photographs. Beautifully designed and printed, this epic collection serves as a monumental tribute to those who died on 9/11 and those who have thereafter worked to honor their memory. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Raymond Bial, First Light Photography, Urbana, IL Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.