THE Kennedys, that most contradictory clan of American Dreamers, have been appearing in print with disturbing regularity of late - and they have also become associated with one of the most alarming trends in literature.
The trend, that is, towards supposition, guesswork and even fiction in what was previously the realm of biographical reporting.
The past year has brought a slew of books in which reality, or at least documented fact, has served as little more than a launch pad for flights of titillating fantasy.
Joe McGinnis' The Last Brother came under attack because the author chose to ''invent'' thoughts for Senator Edward Kennedy - the subject of his book. Despite his not having interviewed the senator, McGinnis acknowledged he had ''written certain scenes and described certain events from what I have inferred to be his point of view''.
The danger here is one of the ''cry wolf'' variety. Invent a mundane thought for a real-life character and it assumes the same value as a truly significant thought: thus, when McGinnis promotes the Mafia-conspiracy theory of John F. Kennedy's assassination through a scene in which bed-ridden Joseph Kennedy admits he may have lost his son because of a deal he struck with the Mob many years earlier, the reader is tempted to take it with a hefty pinch of salt.
Then there are the oceans of salacious copy devoted to Marilyn Monroe and her involvement with the Kennedys. Another new release, CRYPT 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe - The Final Word, blames her death on the Kennedys. It follows books which have blamed her doctor and the Mob. Last year, four psychics interviewed her ghost and that of Bobby Kennedy in an attempt to supply another answer.