Includes bibliographical references and index.

Prologue -- Part one: Icons. Carolyn Bessette ; Jackie Bouvier Kennedy -- Part two: The girls. Mimi Beardsley and Diana de Vegh -- Part three: The bombshell. Marilyn Monroe -- Part four: The lonely graves. Mary Richardson Kennedy ; Kick Kennedy -- Part five: Ted's blondes. Mary Jo Kopechne ; Joan Bennett Kennedy -- Part six: The mythmaker. Jackie Kennedy -- Part seven: Stolen youth. Pamela Kelley ; Martha Moxley -- Part eight: Falling stars. Marilyn Monroe ; Jackie Kennedy Onassis -- Part nine: Homes for wayward girls. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy ; Rosemary Kennedy -- Part ten: Rebels. Joan Kennedy ; Carolyn Bessette Kennedy -- Part eleven: Survivors. Mimi Beardsley Alford and Diana de Vegh -- Part twelve: Phoenix. Jackie Bouvier Onassis -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Kennedy family tree -- Bibliography -- Notes -- Index.

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and--above all else--integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women and girls, leaving a trail of ruin and death in each generation's wake. Through decades of scandal after scandal--from sexual assaults to reputational slander, suicides to manslaughter--the family and their defenders have kept the Kennedy brand intact. Now, in Ask Not, bestselling author and journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys' hidden history of violence and exploitation, laying bare their unrepentant sexism and rampant depravity while also restoring these women and girls to their rightful place at the center of the dynasty's story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren't nearly as well known but should be. Drawing on years of explosive reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled family and a consequential part of American history that is still very much with us. At long last, Callahan redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys' orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves and giving voice to those who, through no fault of their own, could not.