From breathless hagiographies to scandal-mongering exposés, no family has generated more bestselling books than the Kennedys. None of them, however, has focused on the watershed period of World War II, when the course of the family and its individual members changed utterly. Now, in an engaging narrative grounded in impeccable scholarship, Edward J. Renehan, Jr., provides a dramatic portrait of years marked by family tensions, heartbreaks, and heroics. It was during this time that tragedy began to haunt the family -- Joe Jr.'s death, the untimely widowhood of Kathleen (a.k.a. "Kick"), Rosemary's lobotomy. But it was also the time in which John F. Kennedy rose above the strictures of the clan and became his own man.