Carole Radziwill

In "What Remains," Radziwill tells of her childhood in a lively Italian family, her career in TV news and--hauntingly--of "the summer they all died": her husband, Anthony, and his cousins John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. She spoke with Nicki Gostin.

Four years after the summer of 1999 I was starting to forget things we'd done, details about them. It made me anxious. So I talked into a tape recorder--not only about my marriage and coping with my husband's cancer and subsequent death but back to my childhood. That became the framework for the memoir. I liked the writing process. I liked the feeling of being able to get it down in a story. I never sat down one day and said, "Oh, I'm going to write my memoir right now."

Did I understand that people would think, "Yay, another book about John Kennedy"? I was OK with that, because I knew anyone who picked up the book with the intention of gleaning some gossip about my husband and his cousin and wife would read it and have a completely different experience. It's me. It's my life. Unless you're writing about Walden Pond, every story involves other people.

I'm finishing my novel--a political thriller and a love story. And I can honestly say I've never been happier.