Joan's picks: The God of the Woods and Ask Not : The Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed

The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. I loved her previous novel Long Bright River which came out a few years ago, and now she’s done it again. The wealthy Van Laar family own a summer camp on their property, from which their teenage daughter Barbara disappears - sixteen years after her eight year old brother also went missing. How could one family lose two children in such a way? There are a lot of questions, as years of grief and mystery culminate in the search for her, which also brings them answers from the past. This is a story which gently unfolds and is quietly compelling.

Ask Not : The Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed by Maureen Callaghan. The Kennedy men have an aura which has passed down through generations. They’re seen as all American good guys but in their wake they’ve left a litany of misery for the women unfortunate enough to have come into their orbit - and there’s a lot of them. This is a true story about how a veneer of respectability has enabled Kennedy men to behave unbelievably badly; and how their wealth, power, connections and sheer ability to lie has seen them protected and absolved time and time again.

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