When young Harrison Burns becomes an accessory to a crime of passion committed by his friend and prep school classmate Constant Bradley, his silence is bought by patriarch Gerald. 'My soul was lost, but my future was bought and paid for'.
In 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley, who lived in a wealthy area of Greenwich, Conn., was found beaten to death with a golf club. The prime suspect was the 17-year-old neighbour, Thomas Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy. "A Season in Purgatory" was designed to parallel the Moxley murder case. There is a theme of power and privilege - as well as the theme that those with the most expensive lawyers win.
"A Season in Purgatory" blends in all the familiar tales of Kennedy damage and damage control. Constant Bradley's classy, beautiful wife, Charlotte, is given a million dollars by his father when she threatens to leave him because of his womanizing. A mentally challenged sister is packed off to an insane asylum and never mentioned. People are paid to write school essays and an autobiography for Constant, and his father buys up copies of the book to make sure it is a best seller. The oldest brother, Jerry, who is really supposed to be the great family political hope, has an accident, and the woman with him ends up in a wheelchair. A sister becomes an alcoholic. Gerald Bradley has a stroke.
Dominick Dunne (disclosure: he is one of my favourite authors - I subscribed to Vanity Fair for years just so I could read his column) has taken all the most chilling character flaws of generations of Kennedy's and compressed them into one creepy plot line (which happens to be closer to true than not) - a highly readable tale about the privileged who feel they can make their own rules.
In 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley, who lived in a wealthy area of Greenwich, Conn., was found beaten to death with a golf club. The prime suspect was the 17-year-old neighbour, Thomas Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy. "A Season in Purgatory" was designed to parallel the Moxley murder case. There is a theme of power and privilege - as well as the theme that those with the most expensive lawyers win.
"A Season in Purgatory" blends in all the familiar tales of Kennedy damage and damage control. Constant Bradley's classy, beautiful wife, Charlotte, is given a million dollars by his father when she threatens to leave him because of his womanizing. A mentally challenged sister is packed off to an insane asylum and never mentioned. People are paid to write school essays and an autobiography for Constant, and his father buys up copies of the book to make sure it is a best seller. The oldest brother, Jerry, who is really supposed to be the great family political hope, has an accident, and the woman with him ends up in a wheelchair. A sister becomes an alcoholic. Gerald Bradley has a stroke.
Dominick Dunne (disclosure: he is one of my favourite authors - I subscribed to Vanity Fair for years just so I could read his column) has taken all the most chilling character flaws of generations of Kennedy's and compressed them into one creepy plot line (which happens to be closer to true than not) - a highly readable tale about the privileged who feel they can make their own rules.
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