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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people. The search for the Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

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America's fascination with the Kennedy family has been undimmed for over six decades.

The store of cold, hard facts about their lives and deaths

have long ago been exhausted and have given way to reams of speculation. And then, just when it

seemed there were no fresh angles on Camelot, along comes Neil Thompson's, The First Kennedy.

Author Neil Thompson's story, Moonshiners, and the birth of NASCAR, told the true story

behind NASCAR's hardscrabble moonshine-fueled origins. He's back to share the story from

his book, The First Kennedys, the humble roots of an American dynasty.

This is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped

famine, created a life together in a city hostile to the Irish immigrants that came here and

Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty here in America.

This is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance, and reinvention.

It's an American story.

My name is Neil Thompson.

I'm the author of The First Kennedys, The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty,

which is my sixth book of narrative nonfiction.

The first Kennedy tells the story of the Irish immigrant Kennedy's refugees, really, who came

to America in the mid-1800s trying to escape from a crumbling homeland. It tells the story of Patrick and Bridget Kennedy,

who left from their respective small, poor farms

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