to newcomers. Regardless, this collected
correspondence offers a fascinating
glimpse of two artists at a time when they
were as passionate about each another as
their work. B&w illus. (Mar.)
The Irish Brotherhood:
John F. Kennedy, His Inner
Circle, and the Improbable
Rise to the Presidency
Helen O’Donnell, with Kenneth O’Donnell Sr.
Counterpoint (PGW, dist.), $26 (480p) ISBN
978-1-61902-462-5
Working from extensive recordings left
by her father, former political aide
Kenneth “Kenny” O’Donnell Sr., Helen
O’Donnell (A Common Good) produces an
intimate, complex look at the years
leading up to J.F.K.’s presidency, a span
covering 1946–1961. Drawing from
these personal recollections, she reconstructs pivotal scenes, setbacks, and challenges as Kennedy ascended the political
ranks. However, this is more than a book
about Kennedy; it focuses on the so-called
Irish Brotherhood: his closest friends and
advisors, “the group of men who gathered
around John Kennedy as he made his dramatic rise.” As she notes, “this book is my
father’s story of his Jack and Bobby
Kennedy”—a story her father always
wanted to tell but never did. Certain
themes, of course, crop up with regularity: politics, religion, and the tightknit bond of Irish-Americans that helped
hold this circle together over the years.
Though mainly channeling her father’s
experiences, O’Donnell presents them in
an accessible, engaging manner; the figures portrayed are full-fledged characters,
and the story unfolds like a political
drama. Nevertheless, it remains a narrow
slice of the Kennedy legend, focused
solely on his political career, ending as he
enters the White House and treating him
as a larger-than-life icon. (Mar.)
Joe, the Slave Who Became
an Alamo Legend
Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White.
Univ. of Oklahoma, $29.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-
8061-4703-1
Journalist Jackson (Alamo Legacy) and
preservationist White deliver a cradle-to-
grave biography that transcends its con-
nection to the Alamo, though that con-
nection may be the main reason most
readers will reach for this book. The
authors are experts on the March 1836
attack by the Mexican army on the
Texan outpost, and the second half of
their book is gripping and action packed.
The siege at the Alamo has reached
almost mythical proportions in its many
retellings, but Jackson and White hew
closely to documented facts. However,
that the lone male survivor of the assault
was a slave called Joe, owned by the
Alamo’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel
William Travis, reveals this book’s
importance and the story’s central irony.
Joe fought at his master’s side, but victory
didn’t go to the white men of the Alamo.
Jackson and White have rescued Joe from
being regarded solely as a curious foot-
note to this event, and his life as a slave is
the real story here: born in Kentucky in
1815, taken to a fledgling plantation in
Missouri, and then on to Texas, none of
it by choice. The authors make the most
of limited evidence, presenting a vivid
picture of the impact slavery had on one
man’s life. Illus. (Mar.)
★ The Life of William Apess,
Pequot
Philip F. Gura. Univ. of North Carolina, $30
(216p) ISBN 978-1-4696-1998-9
The 1836 delivery of the “Eulogy on
King Philip”—a resounding indictment
of young America’s prejudice toward
Native Americans as well as a memorial
that elevated the reputation of New
England Wampanoag leader, King
Philip, to the ranks of the early republic’s
patriots—brought Apess to the atten-
tion of contemporary students of
American literature. In his engaging,
insightful, and thoroughly detailed
biography, Gura (Truth’s Ragged Edge), a
dean of early American literature, brings
Apess more fully to life. Born in 1798 on
the Connecticut frontier, young Apess
endured hunger, went about clothed in
rags, and often had no cover at night
against the harsh weather. Apess had a
tumultuous childhood with several
adopted families and struggled with
alcoholism, but he converted to
Methodism and began an itinerant min-
istry after serving as a soldier in the War
