Four friends Promising lives cut short

Cohan, who investigated the 2006 Duke lacrosse scandal in The Price of Silence (2014), attended Andover, the prestigious east coast prep school. Many Andover students come from distinguished lineages and impressive wealth; all are expected to graduate, attend Harvard or another Ivy, and go on to glory. Such turned out not to be the case for Cohan's friends Jack Berman, Harry Bull, Will Daniel, and John Kennedy, Jr. Each died before his fortieth birthday: one in a mass shooting, another run over while drunk, another in a boating accident, and another, quite famously, in a plane crash. Cohan incorporates personal memories, interviews with friends and family members, news headlines, and police reports, documenting incidents of teenage misbehavior (failed classes, marijuana and alcohol use, car accidents), convoluted family histories (Daniel was the grandson of Harry Truman; Kennedy was in the public spotlight his entire life), and thwarted expectations (Berman was the grandson of Holocaust concentration camp survivors). Readers who enjoy behind-the-scenes details about the lives of the elite, including their foibles, will appreciate these accounts.--Kathleen McBroom Copyright 2019 Booklist

Prep school grads drift toward untimely ends in this underwhelming biographical elegy. Business journalist Cohan (The Last Tycoons) profiles four classmates who attended the elite Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., with him in the 1970s and died by their early 40s: Will Daniel, a social worker who was run over by a taxi while walking drunk; Harry Bull, a CEO who drowned with his daughters in a boating accident; Jack Berman, the most sympathetic figure, a lawyer who was killed in a mass shooting; and, most spectacularly, Camelot heir John F. Kennedy Junior, who crashed his plane into the Atlantic, killing himself and his wife and sister-in-law. But there's little distinction in their stories as Cohan relates them: pot-smoking, wavering grades, and indulgent schoolmasters at Andover; assists from family wealth; no startling successes or noble failures. Cohan's attempts at pathos fall flat ("Daniel grappled his entire life with how to handle the fame and adulation that came from being the grandchild of [Harry Truman]"), and his theme of youthful promise snuffed out rings hollow, especially in the gossipy Kennedy section, which reveals a profound lack of promise-Kennedy repeated 12th grade-fulfilled by lasting underachievement. The result is an uninvolving study of privileged men felled more by bad judgment than tragic fate. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A memoir/biography about four of the author's Andover classmates, each of whom died an early, violent death.Cohan (Why Wall Street Matters, 2017, etc.), a New York Times columnist, Vanity Fair special correspondent, and CNBC on-air contributor, returns with a very personal, occasionally grim text. In addition to the stories of his classmates, he also provides information about the history of Andover, the only "American high school [that] has produced two presidents of the United States." The four friends were Jack Berman, Will Daniel, Harry Bull, and John F. Kennedy Jr. (Guess who receives the lion's share of the pages?) The author's approach is consistent: He sketches the person's background, focusing on the Andover years (he alludes occasionally to his own contacts with each), and then leads us through the post-Andover life. One was gunned down in a mass shooting in a law firm; a taxi struck and killed another; the third drownedwith his two young daughterswhile sailing on Lake Michigan; the fourth, as most readers will remember, perished in a plane crash on the way to Martha's Vineyard. Cohan is frank about the struggles each figure faced in his life, from substance abuse to marital difficulties to psychological issues. Although the author mentions the many advantages all four men enjoyedeasy access to money, higher education, and employmenthe keeps our attention on the human side of their lives. He reminds us of Kennedy's famous little-boy salute at his father's funeral procession in 1963, his stunning good looks (a "Sexiest Man Alive" for People), his now-and-then academic struggles (he twice failed the bar exam), his sometimes-raucous marriage, and his involvement in the creation of the defunct George magazine. Though portions of the narrative are undeniably moving and poignant, some readers may grow weary of the privilege on display.An emotionally intense reminderthough not always intentionally sothat even privilege must kneel before fate. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.