"How do you feel about joining the media that has made your life hell?" a reporter asked. John smiled and shook his head. "You didn't make my life hell." Sure, sometimes he was annoyed by the attention. But it was "part of the bargain" of being him. "What would your mother say if she could see George?" another reporter called out. John paused for a second and said quietly, "My mother would be mildly amused to see me up here, and very proud." Something happened then. Even from where I stood, way up on the balcony, I could feel it, that powerful, unexpected blurring of the iconic and the actual, the life-movie and real life. There was a collective intake of breath, as if everyone in the room suddenly took a step back. For half a heartbeat, the reporters stopped seeing John as a commodity and connected with him as a person, an orphan who, rich and famous though he may have been, had to make his way in the world like all the rest of us. Then someone else raised his hand and the moment vanished. Excerpted from American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, Jr. by Richard Blow All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
