Kennedy review

Thank you to Larry Smith for this review of new book Kennedy:

Allen Frost’s new novel Kennedy, moves us 20 years ahead 

from his previous Roosevelt into the week around the Cuban 

Missile Crisis in October 1962. “Vintage” best describes this 

intimate tale of a young boy and his relationships with life in 

Bellingham, Washington, with girls, and with his much-loved 

grandparents. As in all of Frost’s work, the poet emerges in 

the details and in the swing of the prose, capturing youthful 

sensitivity and the emotions around love and loss.

The highway coming through his town forebodes disruption 

and change. “The machinery was already at work on the 

highway. It made a low rumble and clank like the engine 

room of a ferryboat.” His metaphors are little treasures found 

along the trail of this book’s details and plot. When he allows 

his mind to focus on a young classmate, “The yellow pencil 

drifted off course from words about the Colony and before 

he knew it, it had written Caroline. Her name had appeared 

so out of the blue it looked like someone had planted a 

flower in all those rows of lead colored words.”  

When his grandmother faces a great loss, he finds her 

changed, “She seemed to float out; he felt like he was 

holding onto a paper version of his grandmother. She 

could have been folded origami. If the breeze was any 

stronger, she might be swept into the sky.” These 

marvelous lines are woven around a simple plot that 

includes the words of then President John F. Kennedy 

whose courage and character balance out the losses 

then, as it still does today.

Thanks to Fred Sodt for his classic illustrations. 

Kennedy is woven in history and perspective 

and is a book for all time.

https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Allen-Frost/dp/1643703994/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536190900&sr=1-1&keywords=allen+frost+kennedy