Symptoms of Withdrawal
Christopher Kennedy Lawford
(Reviewer - Dr. Alma H. Bond)
2005 HarperCollins
ISBN: 0060732482

A memoir of snapshots and Redemption.

According to the back jacket this is “... a poignantly honest portrayal of Lawford's life as a Kennedy, a journey overflowing with hilarious insider anecdotes, heart-breaking accounts of [his] addictions to narcotics as well as to celebrity and, ultimately, the redemption he found by asserting his own independence.”

Sr. Associate Reviewer Dr. Alma H. Bond writes:

What makes for a good book? Is it beautiful, graceful writing, such as those by Virginia Woolf? Is it the ability to tell a good story, which keeps the reader glued to the pages? Perhaps it's a matter of opinion. For example, even those people like your reviewer who love Virginia Woolf find her writing boring at times. Christopher Kennedy Lawford is certainly no Virginia Woolf, & his writing leaves much to be desired. Yet I found Symptoms of Withdrawal difficult to put down, & was sorry when I finished it. There are also wonderful photographs, most of which I have never seen before, which add greatly to the value.

There have been numerous books written by & about the Kennedys, many of which I have reviewed for RebeccasReads. (Type in Kennedy or Alma H. Bond in our Search This Site box to see them.) Most are as unlike as a many faceted diamond. Christopher Lawford gives us yet another view of what it was like to be a Kennedy in the years before & after Camelot.

Symptoms of Withdrawal differs from most of the others in that he takes us there, as if we too were members of America's royal family. For example, he gives us a version of Rose Kennedy that is at loggerheads with the cold, unloving mother figure that even books by & about John Kennedy project. Here we see a kind, loving, warm grandmother, who was a great inspiration to Christopher in his times of need. Perhaps the other biographies were slanted, or it may be that Rose was a better grandmother than she was a mother. It happens. Sometimes people growing up in the same family at the same time have vastly different opinions about their parents. I know that when my sister & I discuss our mother, one would think we were talking about two different people. Thus Rose Kennedy is unrecognizable as the same person represented in other books I have read. Come to think of it, that Caroline Kennedy named her daughter “Rose” bears out Christopher’s perception of his grandmother.

Another insight the book gives us is into the character of Robert Kennedy. He was a superb father, perhaps the best ever, & a real lover of children, whether they were his own or anyone else's. If ever a man should have had 12 children, it was Robert Kennedy. Who knows how his children would have turned out, had he lived? For that matter, who knows how this country would have turned out, had he lived & become president? Would there have been a 9/11? Would we have gone to war with Iraq? How tragic that we will never know.

Another person whose importance to the Kennedys often is minimized was Steve Smith, Eunice's husband, who lacks the glamour of the natural born Kennedys. According to Christopher, his Uncle Steve was the power broker in the family, worked for the family, & was a member of it. Christopher writes, “He was like the Robert Duvall character in The Godfather. He was the consigliere of the family. He ran the family business, which basically amounted to trying not to screw up what my grandfather had created & keeping the beneficiaries happy.” (p 165). When Christopher decided he wanted to go to Hollywood & become an actor, he didn't even bother asking his father, the movie star Peter Lawford, for help. Instead he went to his Uncle Steve, who, sure enough, got him a job at Universal Studios.

Christopher's “snapshot” of Aristotle Onassis is also interesting. He met him at a dinner in “Aunt Jackie's” house, & found him to be “a nice enough guy,” & didn't understand why the adults were so unhappy about the marriage. Although Ari was old, he was rich, which Chris says was a big plus in the family. “He didn't say much, but he smiled, and he brought presents. I figured it was another one of those complicated adult situations that would never be fully explained or understandable to us kids.” (p. 77)

One has to feel sorry for the child Christopher, even though he doesn't seem to indulge in self-pity, submerged in the icy terrain that apparently existed between his mother & father. He found out about his parents' divorce only after rummaging around in his mother's drawers (which he said he shouldn't have been doing), where he found a newspaper clipping from the New York Daily News. It said, “Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy Divorce Finalized.” (p.77 ) This incident seems typical of the frozen ambiance surrounding the Kennedy/Lawford marriage.

In what perhaps is an admirable attempt to be fair, Chris gives no more attention to John F. Kennedy, Jr., than to his other cousins. In fact, he writes much more about Bobby Kennedy, Bobby Shriver, & David Kennedy than JFK, Jr. I would have liked to have read more about John.

There are interesting little anecdotes that help make the Kennedys seem human. For example, Christopher's introduction to the beauty of the female form came when he was a boy of 10 & inadvertently opened a bathroom door to see his Aunt Jackie performing her daily exercises in the nude. He says, “I stood at the door mesmerized... Seeing her like this changed me from the boy I was into something more. I became the keeper of the first - and the loveliest - of the many secrets I would come to own.” (p. 71) What effect seeing this American icon naked must have had on the boy's future sex life we can only imagine.

Much of the book - too much, for my taste - is taken up with Lawford's horrendous descent into the depths of drug addiction, & his courageous   successful attempts to overcome it. His quote of Mark Renton says it all. “I choose not to choose life. I choose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?” (p 216) Lawford's drug career spanned 17 years, & it is to his great credit that he was able to summon up the courage to conquer it. His bravery is best exemplified in a quote he gives of Mahatma Gandhi, “The man who changes himself is greater than the man who conquers ten thousand armies.” (p. 326)

The jacket blurb says the book concerns “the redemption he found by asserting his own independence.” Mr. Lawford is still a comparatively young man (he will be 50 in 2006) to be writing his memoirs. I would love to see another autobiography much further along in his life when it is to be hoped that he can tell us his redemption has held fast. Such nuggets of wisdom, however, as “I had learned in recovery that feelings aren't facts. This is a hard lesson to learn as an adult: it is nearly impossible to learn as a teenager.” (p. 150) speaks well for his growing maturity.

Symptoms of Withdrawal is recommended for the many Kennedy lovers who can't read enough about their idols. Much of it holds the interest of the reader, & illuminates the characters of many members of America's royal family. In terms of the quality of the writing, however, Mr. Lawford has much to learn. At times it is amateurish. For example, he wrote, “NOTE TO READER. Okay. So I just want to make sure you've got it. In a nutshell: I was born with the American dream fulfilled. I blew it all, drowning in a sea of alcohol and drugs. My best friend and father died. I was alone and bankrupt in all categories.” (p.306) A more polished writer would have made sure we “got it” by the clarity of the writing. And if you will excuse my pettiness, I thought I would scream if he used “the planet” one more time.
(01/01/06)

Dr. Alma H. Bond
2006©Alma H. Bond
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

A RebeccasReads author featured in Authors & Books

Reviewer's Bio:
Dr. Alma Halbert Bond is the author of 11 published books. Her latest, Camille Claudel: a Novel, is currently in publication, & will be reviewed as soon as it comes hot off the presses!
The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle;
The Tree That Could Fly;
Tales Of Psychology (2005);
I Married Dr. Jekyll And Woke Up Mrs. Hyde (2000);
The Autobiography Of Maria Callas, A Novel (1998);
On Becoming A Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery (1994);
Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography (1998);
Profiles of Key West (1996).

She recently recorded her new manuscript, Old Age Is A Terminal Illness, as an audio book.

She is also the author of a just published children's picture book called The Tree That Could Fly.

Dr. Bond teaches Psychology & Writing online at WriterSchool.