A brief review of Michael Hogan's The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Biography.
In the opening pages of his 1975 study of the Kennedy presidency, The Promise and Performance, Lewis J. Paper wondered aloud if there was any good reason to be publishing another book about JFK. It had only been 12 years since the president’s assassination but even then it was becoming obvious that Kennedy commanded overwhelming attention. According to Paper the writers then weighing in on Kennedy’s time as POTUS had already broken into the ‘mythologists’ (Schlesinger, Sorenson and co) and the ‘revisionists’ (headed at the time by Victor Lasky) and a bitter struggle over his memory was in full swing. [1]
In 2017, the 100th anniversary of JFK’s birth, one wonders if anything has really changed. The battle between those who believe that Kennedy was the pinnacle of the presidency and those who groan at any attempt to glorify him remains firmly in play. [2] Lewis Paper’s concern that too much had already been written by 1975 could be echoed tenfold today with one estimate suggesting that more than 40 000 publications relating to JFK have emerged since his death. [3]
And yet, for those who remain interested there is great value in all of this. Sure, some of the material is not worth your time but much of it certainly is. That includes this contribution, The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Biography, from historian Michael Hogan published earlier this year. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this book is the single best introduction to the contested history of JFK’s presidency currently in print.
Here are my reasons.
Firstly, Hogan confidently weaves together a story from a daunting array of material. He is across the published literature (books, academic articles, etc.), the cultural institutions (the monuments, libraries and museums) and the media material. One of the joys of reading this book was following the author’s footnotes to see where he was drawing some of his insights from. All of this is brought together to form a tight narrative centring, not on Kennedy’s achievements, but on the battle over his memory.
This is also the work of a scholar who has truly developed the fine art of academic story telling. The Afterlife could have easily become an inventory of anecdotes or a thick and impenetrable ‘cultural studies’ monograph. It is neither. Instead Hogan presents a gripping story of how and why JFK’s memory has evolved since the early 60s, providing fair-minded and insightful commentary throughout.
In terms of the argument, Hogan places Jackie at the centre of JFK’s afterlife. In his view, she was the chief guardian of the Kennedy ‘brand’ – which, he claims, they consciously established during his time in office. Here he avoids a cynical portrayal of Jackie, the wider family or Kennedy’s trusted associates who did so much to protect his image in those early years. Hogan is relentless in his critique of their protectionist approach to Kennedy’s records and their willful attempt to cement a mythical version of his life and legacy in the American psyche. But this is an account developed through the seasoned eye of a skilled historian rather than a political pundit looking to score points.
The Afterlife is also rich in detail. Hogan looks at how the Kennedys created an image through John’s presidency, how this was carried forward by Jackie and her allies and how it began to slowly unravel, especially with the advent of ‘revisionist’ histories and the former first lady’s passing in 1994.
Some of what Hogan presents is not new (the details of the funeral, the grave and the selective interviews she gave to carefully chosen journalists and historians are all familiar). Even one of Hogan’s central claims, that the Kennedys consciously fashioned a ‘brand’ during John’s tenure was convincingly established by historians some time ago (see for example John Hellman’s The Kennedy Obsession now 20 years old). [4] Other recent publications have also commented on many themes within this book including the excellent three-volume series The Cambridge Companion to John F. Kennedy (2015). But Hogan draws all of this together into a very neat-and-tidy narrative (a ‘biography’ as he calls it) of JFK’s place within American memory, something that the other texts already mentioned have not really achieved on this scale.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of the book, and the aspect I found most informative, was his lengthy analysis of the role of the JFK Library and Museum in this story. Hogan shows how, from the beginning, Jackie and the Kennedys set out to use the library as a central monument in their quest to ensure that the JFK America remembered was ‘their JFK’. Although I was aware that the library was a central feature of the early myth-making, I was unaware of the obsessive and at times quasi-totalitarian approach Jackie had taken to ensure the institution was to her liking (even to the point of bullying old friends and associates). Nor was I aware that the early plans for the library had caused so much outrage in Massachusetts. This is especially helpful since the details are brought together in one place opening up a greater appreciation for the role of the Library and Museum in the JFK story.
There are some weaknesses to this book but they are minor. For reasons I am unable able to explain, Hogan only touches on some expressions of the Kennedy myth lightly. The most obvious is pop-culture products such as the films and television series. They are covered but could have been dealt with in more depth as reflections of American attitudes toward Kennedy and, in some cases, as failed attempts to break those attitudes (in the case of Jon Cassar’s ‘The Kennedys’ mini-series from 2011). To be clear, I would not like to have seen this book become a catalogue of these productions but I thought they deserved a little more attention.
I also wonder why Hogan never really discusses Kennedy ‘merchandise’. Given that a central theme of his book is ‘branding’ it seems odd that the commodification of JFK isn’t really analysed in detail (again not at chapter-length but something more substantial than what is offered). One only has to visit the JFK Library and Museum online store to see the bizarre array of material on sale including the ‘authentic John F. Kennedy rocking chair’ (perhaps not as strange as Richard Nixon’s face as a shower head available at his library’s store but still odd). [5] Adding some discussion would have fit quite comfortably at several points throughout the book and, in the very least, may have made for some amusing anecdotes.
At risk of sounding petty, Hogan has also relied on the expression ‘taken together’ throughout the book (usually to suggest that several themes he has discussed express a larger point). There are occasions on which it arises more than once on a single page. Its irritating and I was left wondering why such a skilful writer had relied so heavily a fairly unimaginative turn-of-phrase (or why his editors had not not picked it up).
These criticisms, considering that they are so minimal, may be a better selling point for the book than my overt attempts at praise. This is not ‘another book about Kennedy’ (Lewis Paper would be happy to know). It is a fresh update on the story of JFK’s memory and it will serve anyone wanting to orient themselves to this topic better than any other book I can think of.
. . .
Michael Hogan’s The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Biography is available here
Endnotes
[1] Lewis J. Paper, The Promise and Performance: The Leadership of John F. Kennedy, Crown Publishing Inc., New York, 1975, pp. 3–4
[2] For a recent celebration of the Kennedy presidency see Chris Matthews’ Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, Simon and Schuster, 2012 and for a taste of the opposite see Lisa Fabrizio’s article ‘Enough about JFK’ in The American Spectator, 27 November 2013.
[3] Jill Abramson, ‘Kennedy, the elusive President’, New York Times, 22 October 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/books/review/the-elusive-president.html?_r=0
[4] See John Hellman, The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK, Columbia University Press, New York, 1997. On the first page of the preface Hellman calls Kennedy a ‘product’ (p. ix) and on the second page calls him a ‘performer’ (p. x). Both themes feature prominently in Hogan’s book.
[5] The JFK Library and Museum online store: https://www.jfklibrary.org/Visit/Museum-Store.aspx