Broken glory The final years of Robert F. Kennedy : a graphic history

*Starred Review* Everything about this inquiry into Robert F. Kennedy's assassination 50 years ago is surprising and unsettling, from its form illustrated investigative poetry to its carefully sourced revelations. Sanders, a poet, activist, and founding member of the satiric protest band the Fugs, has been researching RFK's murder for decades, amassing an enormous archive. He now performs a mesmerizing feat of documentary artistry in this powerful distillation of tragic ironies, baffling inconsistencies, and appalling possible explanations, a book of epic verse seamless and supple in its cadence, vivid in its language, sharp in its critique, and deeply moving in its elegiac feelings. Sanders' ringing language is perfectly matched with comics artist Veitch's reverberating drawings. After recounting unnerving theories involving CIA-programmed assassins and the imprisoned killer, Sirhan Sirhan, and painfully prescient situations (Robert and his family's visit with friend John Frankenheimer, director of The Manchurian Candidate (1962); the RFK campaign contracting with a Los Angeles funeral home for limo service), Sanders observes, Nothing is too weird for 1968. After building a case for a much more complicated and sinister attack than officially recognized, Sanders writes, The past is like quicksand. What emerges most definitively and hauntingly is Robert F. Kennedy's conviction, eloquence, and courage, and how very much the world lost on June 5, 1968.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2018 Booklist