Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-353) and index.

Examines the life of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, covering her Stanford education, her inspirational relationship with her sister Rosemary, her advocacy on behalf of disabled citizens, and her role as founder of the Special Olympics.

"Pulitzer Prize-winner Eileen McNamara brings Eunice Kennedy Shriver out from her brothers' shadows to reveal an officious, cigar-smoking, fast-driving, indefatigable woman who was a shrewd player in the careers of Jack, Bobby, and Ted, a complicated wife to Sargent, an oft-neglected daughter of Rose, and a fiercely devoted but emotionally aloof mother to her five children. Granted access to never-before-seen private papers, including the scrapbooks Eunice kept as a schoolgirl in prewar London, McNamara paints an extraordinary portrait of a woman both ahead of her time and out of step with it: the visionary founder of Special Olympics, a devout Catholic in a secular age, and a formidable woman whose impact on American society was longer-lasting than that of any of the Kennedy men."--Jacket.