In 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the beautiful, rebellious, and intelligent ex-wife of a top CIA official, was killed on a quiet Georgetown towpath near her home. Mary Meyer was a secret mistress of President John F. Kennedy, whom she had known since private school days, and after her death, reports that she had kept a diary set off a tense search by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. But the only suspect in her murder was acquitted, and today her life and death are still a source of intense speculation, as Nina Burleigh reveals in her widely praised book, the first to examine this haunting story.
A Very Private Woman
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First Sentence
Anyone wanting to write about a member of the silent generation of women that mothered the baby boom and married the cold warriors confronts a peculiar obstacle: Many of these women believe their lives were utterly unremarkable. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Anyone wanting to write about a member of the silent generation of women that mothered the baby boom and married the cold warriors confronts a peculiar obstacle: Many of these women believe their lives were utterly unremarkable. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This book doesn't answer some intriguing questions: Who killed Mary Meyer? What was the motive? What did Mary Meyer feel about her lover, John Kennedy, and his assassination? The author does take the subject seriously and gives Mary Meyer the respect she deserves. However, this book creates more questions than answers.
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Wrap up high-society of the '20s and '30s with the Kennedy years, the racial tensions of the early '60s, and a little flavor of the art world, and then sprinkle in a few conspiracy theories, the CIA, and a murder, put it all against a paranoiac backdrop of the cold war atmosphere, and then finally, for good measure, give it a dash of Timothy Leary and the drug culture (oh, and presidential sex too) - and you've got ... well, the potential for quite a mess. You also have the framework of the Mary Meyer story, and in less capable hands it could easily have taken on the tone of a melodramatic soap opera. But if there is one thing that Burleigh can be complimented on, it is her evenhandedness in discovering and examining the actual facts. Exhaustively researched (don't skip the footnotes on this one, they're fascinating in themselves) and carefully crafted, Burleigh gives a well balanced account of a life during turbulent, if not down right chaotic, times.
Readers might be disappointed that there is no tidy conclusion, but, then, that's real life. And what Burleigh delivers is the quite remarkable story of one woman who emerges from the label of housewife and hostess to stake out an identity of her own.
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Ms. Burleigh's title says a little less that what is revealed in the body of the book. Her style is flat and reportorial, and on several occasions she repeats information for no apparent reason. I was very disappointed. I would have liked for her to have followed her leads and to have come to some kind of meaningful conclusion.
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3.4 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dull, pedantic and filled with unnecessary detail
It was difficult to plow through this dull and fact-filled account of Mary Meyer's life. I had hoped for more depth about the woman and her soul, her ideas, her feelings. Read more
Published on 21 Feb 1999
4.0 out of 5 stars
A vivid portrayal of a fascinating woman and her times.
For anyone with an interest in the world of Washington politics and the East Coast intelligentsia "ruling class" of the 1950s and 1960s, this vivid portrait of Mary Pinchot Myer... Read more
Published on 17 Dec 1998
5.0 out of 5 stars
Definately a page turner!
Being an average "Jane", this book opened up many new worlds to me. Not only Mary Meyer's world, which I found truly interesting, but it also introduced me to and made... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 1998
4.0 out of 5 stars
evocative of a time not long gone but already far away
Having lived and worked in the Washington of the eighties and nineties, I found this book colorfully evocative of a time not long gone but already very far away. Read more
Published on 14 Dec 1998
4.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling account of a remarkable woman
As accounts of presidential mistresses fill the headlines, Nina Burleigh's portrait of an urbane, sophisticated woman whose life crossed Kennedy's many times in their lives is a... Read more
Published on 9 Dec 1998
1.0 out of 5 stars
Appallingly bad
You would think that it would be impossible to write a dull, mediocre, cramped and pompous book about the combined topics of the CIA, a presidential mistress (JFK's), high society... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 1998
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Private Woman" gives a look of the New Frontier at home.
While this book is marketed to get our attention (Presidential Mistress, Unsolved Murder Mystery), the actual story is much more balanced and thoughtful. Read more
Published on 23 Nov 1998
1.0 out of 5 stars
Mary Meyer Deserves Better
You would think that given the subjects of a mistress of JFK, the CIA, the Washington art world, high society in the 1920's and 30's, political intrigue, etc. Read more
Published on 16 Nov 1998
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