The Trap of Political Dynasties

Where "Great Expectations" differs from conventional history is in its focus on the personal, the emotional casualties that arise from voracious expectations of driven parents with enormous political ambitions. Daughters in these families are lucky; they generally have been free from unreasonable pressure, but heaven help the sons. The Kennedys are not the only ones to flame out dramatically in the third generation. They can be matched, catastrophe by catastrophe, by sons in the Adams family. Poor John Quincy Adams "was the ideal firstborn son for an ambitious couple: bright, conscientious, driven by duty, and terribly eager to please. As a child, he blamed himself when he wanted to play and not study Latin. At six, he had secretly cried in fear and frustration when he failed to understand or appreciate 'Paradise Lost.' "

Yes, John Quincy Adams did become president, but he forever felt that he'd failed to live up to his father's example. As for his brothers? One died alone and in disgrace from cirrhosis of the liver; the other lived on for a while in wretchedness, then died of liver failure as well. (Not so different from the fates of some of the latter generation of Kennedys, except for their drugs of choice, the author points out.)

Emery draws parallels between George W. Bush and John F. Kennedy -- which probably would give both of them hives. Both were younger brothers, semi-rebellious, not explicitly chosen by their families for presidential laurels, but they rose to occasions of great responsibility. Kennedy weathered the Bay of Pigs and triumphed in the Cuban missile crisis. And the 43rd president, Emery contends, has also turned out to be decisive and strong. He invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, decided to "extend the meaning of the new war on terror to include states suspected of backing or arming the terrorists," declared that preventive wars were justifiable and determined to introduce democracy to the Middle East. The formerly rebellious younger son has "avenged and surpassed his own father, having first dispatched his father's tormentors and enemies: Ann Richards in Texas; Al Gore, who attacked him as Clinton's vice president; and Saddam Hussein."

These are stories embedded in the national consciousness, stories we feel we know. Teddy Roosevelt's extraordinary derring-do, for instance, is part of our American legend, though the grief of Teddy's own son at being passed over for the presidency is not so well documented. And FDR's panache still lives in memory, while the destinies of his children remain shrouded in disgrace.

The author sometimes speculates more than is proper or appropriate: Young John F. Kennedy Jr., she writes, who didn't want to be president, was doing fine with his magazine, George, until President Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal. Kennedy had the perfect public platform to analyze that debacle, but to do so, he would have had to deal with his own father's compulsive womanizing. "John stepped away and doomed the magazine to irrelevance and himself to an uncertain future," Emery writes. "For if 'George' failed, had he?"

Emery pushes and pulls at her thesis -- sons of dynastic families who cannot rise to their parents' expectations are, in one way or the other, doomed -- to make history turn out her way. She casts scathing aspersions on Henry Adams, portraying him as a back-sliding ne'er-do-well: He "gave the words 'effete snob' new weight and new meaning," but come on! Writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Education of Henry Adams" isn't exactly hanging out in the pool hall.

But the author's speculations don't really matter in the end. "Great Expectations" reads like high-grade gossip and lays out some aspects of American history in a new and interesting way. You don't have to agree with everything the author says to be captivated by her performance.

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