Fairy Tale Interrupted

November 21, 2011
Talking back to John F. Kennedy Jr. was not anything Rose-Marie Terenzio, a girl from the Bronx, ever imagined herself doing. Nevertheless, this is how her relationship with Kennedy began. And in this candid memoir, Terenzio discusses the professional and personal role she played in the lives of JFK Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Wanting relief from the economic stress of her childhood, Terenzio felt lucky when she landed a job as a junior-level publicist with an upscale Manhattan public relations firm; then Kennedy moved into the same office. When Kennedy left to start a magazine, Terenzio became his personal assistant. In September 1995, Kennedy launched the political magazine, George. Terenzio writes, “I hadn’t even turned thirty yet, and I was working with JFK Jr. at the most intriguing magazine in the country, in what seemed like the absolute center of the universe.” Terenzio deftly reconstructs the wonderfully addictive yet strange and high-pressure world in which she worked and that the young couple navigated daily. Terenzio’s captivating story, told with style and grace, chronicles her time with Kennedy within the glorious but often brutal bubble that encircled his world, and what he taught her about living.