James Patterson Explains Fascination That Inspired 'The House of Kennedy'

The Kennedy he finds most compelling

Joe Sr. was actually in some ways the most impressive of all of them. He was impressive and depressing. He was crafty and very, very bright ... the patriarch of this family, the one who started it and drove these kids to be as good as they could be and to be daredevils. The story of what happened to Rosemary [President John F. Kennedy's sister] -— unbelievable. There had been a problem during her delivery that caused her to be a little slower. She was doing fine, but she didn't live up to the Kennedy “be the best you can be.” They tried a lobotomy on her [in 1941]. That was the kind of the end of her. [She was institutionalized for the rest of her life.]

Joe and Rose Kennedy's child-rearing style

They told them, “Do anything you can to win....” That's part of the tragedy; “Go climb that tree. If you fall, you fall.” “Go up in that airplane.” “Get on those skis.” “Have a football game while on skis.” The culture of that family was succeed, succeed, succeed at any cost.

The dark side of fame and fortune

It's a hard legacy to live up to. That's one of the tricks with people who are the children of famous people or very rich people, they have their own cross to bear. People may say, “Oh my God, they're so lucky!” Well, yes and no.

Why Vanity Fair called Patterson the Henry Ford of books

I have this huge pile with the clever title “Ideas” on it. A lot of them could really be tremendous, but I can't do them all myself, obviously. I will find people to write with. (Patterson and former President Bill Clinton wrote the 2018 novel The President Is Missing, an adaptation of which will air on Showtime, with Patterson as executive producer.) Everybody I write with is somebody who understands that it's going to be in a certain style: It's going to be fast-paced, we'll do shorter chapters, it will be very tight storytelling.

Why he's given more than $75 million to support bookstores, booksellers, literacy efforts, teachers, librarians, colleges

It's just the way I was brought up, to give back. When I die, half of everything I have goes to these same charities. It's very focused on reading and getting kids reading, which is crucial. I'm talking about kids who are going to wind up in jail if they don't become competent readers.

Advice for getting your kids or grandkids to read more

The thing with kids is to get books in their hands. I don't mean dum-dum books, I mean books that have something to them where they can say, “I really liked that. I want to read another book.”

Books help people to dig deeper. Books make people better people.