John A. Farrell on Ted Kennedy, with Kai Bird, Wednesday, February 22, 6:30 pm, 2023

John A. Farrell on Ted Kennedy
in conversation with Kai Bird
Wednesday, February 22, 6:30 pm
Elebash Recital Hall, the Graduate Center
John A. Farrell’s magnificent biography of Edward M. Kennedy is the first single-volume life of the great figure since his death. Farrell’s long acquaintance with the Kennedy universe and the acclaim accorded his previous books-including his New York Times bestselling biography of Richard Nixon, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize-helped garner him access to a remarkable range of new sources, including segments of Kennedy’s personal diary and his private confessions to members of his family in the days that followed the accident on Chappaquiddick. Farrell is, without question, one of America’s greatest political biographers and a storyteller of deep wisdom and empathy. His book does full justice to this famously epic and turbulent life of almost unimaginable tragedy and triumph.
John A. Farrell (www.jafarrell.com) is the author of Richard Nixon: The Life, which won the PEN America award for the best biography, and the New-York Historical Society book prize for the best volume of American history, of 2017. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His new book: Ted Kennedy: A Life, made the list of finalists for the National Book Award. In 2001 he published Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, which won the Hardeman prize for the best book on Congress. His book, Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, won the Los Angeles Times book award for best biography of 2012.
Leon Levy Center Executive Director Kai Bird co-authored with Martin J. Sherwin the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Knopf, 2005). A major motion picture based on this biography is scheduled to appear in 2023. He has also written biographies of John J. McCloy and McGeorge Bundy-and a memoir, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis (Scribner, 2010). His biography of President Jimmy Carter, The Outlier: the Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter, was published in 2021 by Crown Books.