“Filled with the vitality and spirit that made Jack Kennedy such a magical figure. Chris Matthews shows the cunning and determination beneath that magic. It’s an awesome and delightful book.” —Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs

From the former host of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and bestselling author of Lessons from Bobby comes a “fascinating portrait” (Doris Kearns Goodwin, bestselling author of Team of Rivals) of a man many loved but few truly understood.

“What was he like?”

Jack Kennedy said the reason people read biography is to answer that basic question. What was he like, this man whose own wife called him “that elusive, unforgettable man?” In this New York Times bestselling biography, Chris Matthews answers that question with the verve of a novelist. We see this most beloved president in the company of friends. We see and feel him close-up, having fun and giving off that restlessness of his. We watch him navigate his life from privileged, rebellious youth to gutsy American president. We witness his bravery in war and selfless rescue of his PT boat crew. We watch JFK as a young politician learning to play hardball and watch him grow into the leader who averts a nuclear war.

Matthews’s extraordinary biography is based on personal interviews with those closest to JFK, oral histories by top political aide Kenneth O’Donnell and others, documents from his years as a student at Choate, and notes from Jacqueline Kennedy’s first interview after Dallas. As Matthews writes: “I found a fighting prince never free of pain, never far from trouble, never accepting the world he found, never wanting to be his father’s son. He was a far greater hero than he ever wished us to know.”