It sounds like a true Cinderella story: A girl from a lower economic class works hard, goes to college, begins a career that she loves and meets a wonderful man with whom she falls in love and marries, and oh, yeah, he's a real prince.
Carole Radziwill recounts her story in “What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love.” You may recognize her married name; she married Anthony Radziwill, son of Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy Onassis#, sister. John and Caroline Kennedy were his first cousins.
Carole DiFalco grew up in Suffern, a small community located an hour upstate from New York City. Her Italian father worked in the restaurant industry, eventually owning his own restaurant. The restaurant business is difficult, and the family often struggled to make ends meet.
Her mother's family lived in Mount Marion, on the banks of Esopus Creek. Carole adored her mother's off-kilter family. Grandma Millie, the larger-than-life matriarch of the family, lived in a run-down home with several of her adult children and their various spouses and friends.
Carole and her siblings spent their summers swimming in the creek and watching as the adults conducted their extensive evening ritual, preparing for hours to go out to the local bars. The adults drank and smoked a lot, and seemed very glamorous to Carole.
While at Hunter College in New York City, she decides she wants to be a journalist. Handing out her resume at every media job fair she can find, she lands an internship at ABC News.
I was most impressed with how hard she worked to make a name for herself. Although her goal was a paying job, she was savvy enough to realize that if she took the internship and worked harder than anyone else, she would get noticed.
She was promoted to production secretary and then production assistant. Her big break came when she was asked to go to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam to set up interviews for “Peter Jennings Reports.” At the age of 25, alone in foreign countries, she proved herself a worthy journalist.
Her hard work paid off; she became well respected for her dedication and organization. She was sent to Los Angeles to work on a piece about the Menendez brothers, and it was there that she met Anthony Radziwill, another young ABC producer.
They enjoyed each other's company, but it was not love at first sight. They saw each other off and on, as both were working hard at their careers. Eventually, they fell in love and married.
While renting a summer home in the Hamptons, Carol met Anthony's cousin and best friend, John F. Kennedy Jr. The first time she met him, he was wearing his boxer shorts. She liked John right away, and enjoyed the brotherly relationship between John and Anthony.
It was in the Hamptons that she met Carolyn Bessette, John's girlfriend. They immediately clicked. Both were girls from small towns upstate from New York City and joked that while the rich boys were waterskiiing, the girls were working summers at Caldor.
While on their honeymoon, Anthony noticed a lump on his stomach. That began the journey through cancer. Anthony had many surgeries, and spent a lot of time in hospitals. During this ordeal, it was Carolyn who took it upon herself to care for Carole.
She flew down to Washington to sit with Carole when Anthony was in the hospital. When you think of the definition of a good friend, Carolyn fits it to a tee. The woman that Carole describes in her book is very different from the Carolyn that was all over the tabloids, the cool blonde woman who cared only for fashion. She was funny, bossy and loving.
It was much harder for John to deal with his cousin's cancer. Seeing his cousin weak and sick was difficult. Carole describes a day when Anthony was near death, and John came in after an event, in his tuxedo, held his cousin, both of them singing a song that John's mother sang to them when they were little boys.
After years of living with this disease, spending weeks in hospitals, making trips to emergency rooms, trying all kinds of treatments, undergoing numerous surgeries, it was coming to the end of Anthony's life. They were spending the summer at John and Carolyn's home on Cape Cod.
While waiting for John and Carolyn to fly in, Carole received a phone call from the man who was to pick them up at the airport; they had not arrived. Were they already at the home? Carole went into full reporter mode, making phone calls, trying to track them down, praying that they had landed somewhere else, that this was some sort of mix-up.
By 2 a.m., it fell to Carole to call the Coast Guard and report them missing. It was a crushing blow to the very ill Anthony, who had just a few weeks left to live himself. Carole had lost her best friends, the support system she was counting on to help her get through Anthony's impending death.
They had planned Anthony's funeral, now she had to get him through the funeral of his best friend. It is interesting to see events we saw unfolding in the news from the perspective of someone living through it.
Three weeks later, Anthony was dead. Carole had lost the three people she loved most in this world; two completely unexpected, one after many years of battle.
Radziwill doesn't shy away from describing the horrors of living with cancer. This is her story of her life with her husband and John and Carolyn, and she does a good job of preserving as much of their privacy as possible. She shares the joy, love, sorrow and anger of being a friend, wife and spouse of a sick man.
She is a good writer, concise as you would expect a journalist to be. This could have been a maudlin book, but she presents her story honestly. It is the heartbreaking story of a princess who doesn't get her fairytale ending, but somehow we know she will get through it in the end. I give it four and half stars.
Auburn native Diane La Rue's lifelong goal is to read a book a week. If you have suggestions, e-mail her at diane2000@yahoo.com
If you read
What: “What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love”
Who: Carole Radziwill
Publisher: Scribner
Cost: $15, paperback
Carole DiFalco grew up in Suffern, a small community located an hour upstate from New York City. Her Italian father worked in the restaurant industry, eventually owning his own restaurant. The restaurant business is difficult, and the family often struggled to make ends meet.
Her mother's family lived in Mount Marion, on the banks of Esopus Creek. Carole adored her mother's off-kilter family. Grandma Millie, the larger-than-life matriarch of the family, lived in a run-down home with several of her adult children and their various spouses and friends.
Carole and her siblings spent their summers swimming in the creek and watching as the adults conducted their extensive evening ritual, preparing for hours to go out to the local bars. The adults drank and smoked a lot, and seemed very glamorous to Carole.
While at Hunter College in New York City, she decides she wants to be a journalist. Handing out her resume at every media job fair she can find, she lands an internship at ABC News.
I was most impressed with how hard she worked to make a name for herself. Although her goal was a paying job, she was savvy enough to realize that if she took the internship and worked harder than anyone else, she would get noticed.
She was promoted to production secretary and then production assistant. Her big break came when she was asked to go to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam to set up interviews for “Peter Jennings Reports.” At the age of 25, alone in foreign countries, she proved herself a worthy journalist.
Her hard work paid off; she became well respected for her dedication and organization. She was sent to Los Angeles to work on a piece about the Menendez brothers, and it was there that she met Anthony Radziwill, another young ABC producer.
They enjoyed each other's company, but it was not love at first sight. They saw each other off and on, as both were working hard at their careers. Eventually, they fell in love and married.
While renting a summer home in the Hamptons, Carol met Anthony's cousin and best friend, John F. Kennedy Jr. The first time she met him, he was wearing his boxer shorts. She liked John right away, and enjoyed the brotherly relationship between John and Anthony.
It was in the Hamptons that she met Carolyn Bessette, John's girlfriend. They immediately clicked. Both were girls from small towns upstate from New York City and joked that while the rich boys were waterskiiing, the girls were working summers at Caldor.
While on their honeymoon, Anthony noticed a lump on his stomach. That began the journey through cancer. Anthony had many surgeries, and spent a lot of time in hospitals. During this ordeal, it was Carolyn who took it upon herself to care for Carole.
She flew down to Washington to sit with Carole when Anthony was in the hospital. When you think of the definition of a good friend, Carolyn fits it to a tee. The woman that Carole describes in her book is very different from the Carolyn that was all over the tabloids, the cool blonde woman who cared only for fashion. She was funny, bossy and loving.
It was much harder for John to deal with his cousin's cancer. Seeing his cousin weak and sick was difficult. Carole describes a day when Anthony was near death, and John came in after an event, in his tuxedo, held his cousin, both of them singing a song that John's mother sang to them when they were little boys.
After years of living with this disease, spending weeks in hospitals, making trips to emergency rooms, trying all kinds of treatments, undergoing numerous surgeries, it was coming to the end of Anthony's life. They were spending the summer at John and Carolyn's home on Cape Cod.
While waiting for John and Carolyn to fly in, Carole received a phone call from the man who was to pick them up at the airport; they had not arrived. Were they already at the home? Carole went into full reporter mode, making phone calls, trying to track them down, praying that they had landed somewhere else, that this was some sort of mix-up.
By 2 a.m., it fell to Carole to call the Coast Guard and report them missing. It was a crushing blow to the very ill Anthony, who had just a few weeks left to live himself. Carole had lost her best friends, the support system she was counting on to help her get through Anthony's impending death.
They had planned Anthony's funeral, now she had to get him through the funeral of his best friend. It is interesting to see events we saw unfolding in the news from the perspective of someone living through it.
Three weeks later, Anthony was dead. Carole had lost the three people she loved most in this world; two completely unexpected, one after many years of battle.
Radziwill doesn't shy away from describing the horrors of living with cancer. This is her story of her life with her husband and John and Carolyn, and she does a good job of preserving as much of their privacy as possible. She shares the joy, love, sorrow and anger of being a friend, wife and spouse of a sick man.
She is a good writer, concise as you would expect a journalist to be. This could have been a maudlin book, but she presents her story honestly. It is the heartbreaking story of a princess who doesn't get her fairytale ending, but somehow we know she will get through it in the end. I give it four and half stars.
Auburn native Diane La Rue's lifelong goal is to read a book a week. If you have suggestions, e-mail her at diane2000@yahoo.com
If you read
What: “What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love”
Who: Carole Radziwill
Publisher: Scribner
Cost: $15, paperback
