The Death of a President

November 20-November 25, 1963

By: William Manchester

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

As the world still reeled from the tragic and historic events of November 22, 1963, William Manchester set out, at the request of the Kennedy family, to create a detailed, authoritative record of President John F. Kennedy's death, including the days immediately preceding and following the assassination. Through hundreds of interviews, extensive travel, and first hand observation, and with unique access to the proceedings of the Warren Commission, Manchester conducted an exhaustive historical investigation, accumulating 45 volumes of documents, exhibits, and transcribed tapes. His ultimate objective—to set down as a whole the national and personal tragedy that was JFK's assassination—is brilliantly achieved in this galvanizing narrative, a book universally acclaimed as a landmark work of modern history.

©2013 William Manchester (P)2013 Blackstone Audio

Great Narration

This was, for me, a poignant reminder of events that took place in my younger years. The narrator did a fine job with the various accents.

Its like stepping through a portal into 1960s USA

If you could sum up The Death of a President in three words, what would they be?

The definitive account of the JFK assassination.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Death of a President?

When Dean Rusk is notified of the murder, the other folks on the plane interpret his reaction as indicating a nuclear war has started.

Have you listened to any of Joe Barrett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I havent heard him, but he was excellent.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me both laugh and cry.

Any additional comments?

Its a bit of a hagiography. I think Gore Vidal called it a historical novel. But Manchester nearly worked himself to death writing and researching it. It was a great listen.

Btw, I really liked the narrator - his take on Johnson, the Dallas police chief, the Kennedy staff, Jackie, Secret Service agents.

Fascinating and Full of Information

I've been a student of the Kennedys since I fell in love with history and this book brought about so much new information (aka things I didn't know). It was fascinating. I was worried that the length would make it hard for me to get through but it didn't. It's made me want to get more books about the Kennedy family, the Johnsons and those few days. My own dislike was the narrator using accents/voices for the different people.

Great performance

The book is an outstanding up close view of the days around the JFK assassination. What stood out to me most was the performance the reader. He managed to capture the spirit of the book, the voices of the people involved and even went so far as to sing at one point during the performance. Truly, an exceptional job of narrating a riveting story. Audiobook readers add so much to the story… But this performance in particular made a very good book feel like a masterpiece.

Great story, but...

Terrible narration. He was fine when he was reading text, but when he would read quotes and try to imitate voices/accents he sounded ridiculous!