America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis [Audiobook] [MP3 CD]

We get to see behind the Kennedy mythology-Jack was as wayward as her father, and in retaliation, Jackie spent his money. Nanny Maud Shaw was pointedly left out of the many photo-exclusives the Kennedys gave to Life magazine, even though she was the main parental figure for Caroline and John, Jr. Coexisting in the First Lady was a woman who wore glamorous gowns and wowed dignitaries with her conversational skills and self-possessed manner, and a woman who smoked incessantly, hated campaigning, bit her fingernails to the quick, and was deeply wounded by her husband's infidelities.

Bradford's interviews are far-ranging: From Gloria Steinem to Jackie's younger sister Lee Radziwill, many of Jackie's acquaintances in Greece, Gore Vidal, her cousin John Davis, and some of her former flames, the people quoted in this book give us a glimpse of a privileged and often painful life. It is frankly stated that Jackie's repeated miscarriages and stillbirths were undoubtedly due contracting chlamydia from JFK. For years after the assassination of her husband, in odd moments Jackie would confide the hideous shock of holding parts of her husband's head in her hands. She had an embattled relationship with her mother, Janet Lee, and later with her sister, who was frustratingly left in the shadow of her sister's radiant beam. Many of the society wives who moved in Jackie's circle reported how possessive and flirtatious she was with their husbands. Far from being in love with Onassis (who had been having an affair with her sister), Jackie married him primarily for the security his vast fortune could afford her. Jackie was far more interested in championing the arts (her helping to start the foundation to restore the White House, her involvement in the campaign to save Grand Central Station), than in humanitarian and charitable causes, Bradford asserts.

This book could well have been subtitled "Iron Butterfly," as Jackie repeatedly gets what she wants (money, donations of antiquities to the White House, clothing) by being manipulative and irresistible at the same time. Yet despite not being the idealized version of herself we've all recognized over the years, Jackie is a fully-realized person in this book. I felt I knew more about her and her motivations after reading it, and not necessarily liking her any less for her flaws of character. The woman who stated her ambition in her Farmington yearbook as "Never to be a housewife" certainly exceeded that goal.

A good addition to your library-my only quibble would be for more attention to detail in the editing and more pictures we haven't already seen. Objective Jackie fans will not be disappointed in what, in the end, is a well-rounded portrait of an unforgettable woman.

Bradford has done a remarkable amount of research and distilled forty years worth of previously published writing into a compelling account. She augments her research with a large and impressive array of interviews with primary sources, including, for the first time on record, Jackie's sister, Lee Radzilwell.

And yet her account is riddled with nagging mistakes of tiny details, starting with the first sentance of the first chapter. Jackie was a thirty four year old widow in November 1963, not thirty five as stated. Small mistakes, yes, but God is in the details and it's a little jarring, undermining slightly her scholarly and well measured approach.

Nonetheless, her take on the life of "America's Queen" is riviting in its presentation and scope. Jackie emerges as both an icon and a person, a woman with a unique hold on our cultural psyche as well as a woman of the 1950's coming into her own through the years of a fascinating life.

A worthy addition to the Kennedy canon, and justifiably described as a "definative" biography.

Jackie was criticized by the press, plagued by photographers and misunderstood by the Kennedy family. With her unique personality, she manages to rise above it all and give some semblance of normalcy to her life and that of her children.

After reading the book, while I understand her better, I can't say for sure that I would have enjoyed being her friend. Her emotions seemed a bit too volatile for comfort.

I give the book high marks. Clearly there has been intensive research done here. Except in one of the photos of Jackie leaving for the Inaugural Gala. That was the night of Jan. 19th, not the 20th.

This one is going on my bookshelf to stay with the rest of my first lady collection.