The Family

The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty

By: Kitty Kelley

Narrated by: Kitty Kelley

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

An important polemic on wealth, power, and class in America, The Family is rich in texture, probing in its psychological insight, revealing in its political and financial detail, and stunning in the patterns that emerge and expose the Bush dynasty as it has never before been exposed.

Ms. Kelley takes us back to the origins of the family fortune in the Ohio steel industry at the turn of the last century, through the oil deals and international business associations that have maintained and increased their wealth over the past hundred years. The book leads us through Prescott Bush's first entrée into government at the state level in 1950s Connecticut, to George Herbert Walker Bush's long and winding road to the White House, to his son's quick sweep into the same office. Along the way, we see the complex relationships the Bushes have had with the giants of the century, Eisenhower, Nixon, Joseph McCarthy, Kissinger, Reagan, and Clinton, as well as the often ruthless methods used to realize their goals.

Perhaps most impressive, and surprising, is the way the book delves behind the obsessively protected public image into the family's intimate private lives: the matriarchs, the mistresses, the marriages, the divorces, the jealousies, the hypocrisies, the golden children, and the black sheep.

At a crucial point in American history, Kitty Kelley is the one person to finally tell all about the family that has, perhaps more than any other, defined our role in the modern world. This is the book the Bushes don't want you to read. This is The Family.

©2004 Kitty Kelley (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

An Independent's Perspective

Yes, Kitty is not famous for her journalistic integrity. However, this book does offer much verifiable information that you simply do not see in the mainstream press. I suspect my liberal friends will gleefully celebrate the expose of the sordid lives and deeds of the Bush family while my die-hard right-wingers will dismiss everything as "more of the liberal conspiracy." As an Independent, I believe the book gives an interesting insight into one of the most influencial families of our Nation and challenges one to contemplate whether Americans really live in a Democracy or whether perhaps we really live in a weak Aristocracy.

Um, can someone get her some coffee

I think Kitty Kelley may have a substance abuse prob herself. She’s slower than Bush Sr.’s bowel movements.

Conjecture with no sources.

If I would have written information like this in my journalism class I would have been expelled. I found her ability to walk the tightrope of slander and libel quite impressive though. If your a bush-hater you'll probably love this one... However my sense says that this is miscategorized, should be under fiction.

Finally, Kelley exposes the truth!

OMG! If any one of the numerous facts shared by Mrs. Kelley is true, I am so thankful for having stuck to my instinct on the Bush Family. From outright racism and classism to drug abuse, adultery and scandal, the Bush Family exposes the truth behind the "image" that the Bush Family so eagerly projects. I only wish that many of the brave souls that bought weed from Laura Bush, snorted cocaine with George W. at Camp David, and had extramarital affairs with George 41 would speak up.