Jackie Public, private, secret

Review by Booklist Review

Stunning, scintillating, and, at times, a bit salacious, Kennedy expert Taraborrelli's latest biography of the legendary Jackie O shares intimate details about her most rewarding yet frequently vexing relationships. Whether it was with her mother or sister, Jack or the entire Kennedy clan, Aristotle Onassis or one of the other men with whom she had fleeting dalliances or enduring involvements, Jackie compartmentalized her life into public and private spheres. She was also tormented for years by deeply held secrets. From childhood to her death in 1994, Jackie's life is dissected in brief, episodic vignettes, many based on Taraborrelli's insider access and lengthy career as a Kennedy chronicler and celebrity biographer. The result is gossipy and dishy, reverential and frank, sometimes unvarnished, sometimes sugar-coated. Readers will see the ingenué first lady as well as the frightened young widow, the insecure daughter and the confident literary editor, and perhaps come to know the complete, complex woman behind the headlines and those trademark oversize sunglasses. This fits well with two other incisive Jackie portraits, My Travel with Mrs. Kennedy (2022) and Camera Girl (2023).

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis once told a lover that she had three lives ("public, private, and secret"),­ according to this gossipy biography. Drawing on interviews and previously unpublished material from the JFK Library, Taraborrelli (Jackie, Ethel, and Joan) documents Jackie's reservations about marrying JFK when he was a senator from Massachusetts; the background to the 1972 publication of nude photographs taken of her years earlier by a paparazzo (it was arranged in revenge by the children of her husband Aristotle Onassis); the nature of her relationship with diamond merchant Maurice Templesman, which was more about companionship than sex; and the fruitless efforts to save her life with an experimental cancer treatment. According to Taraborrelli, Jackie suffered nightmarish post-traumatic stress throughout her life after JFK's assassination, causing her to seek out therapy, which led to self-study and self-actualization. "Her life had been filled with as much trauma as reward, all playing out before the whole world," writes Taraborrelli. Readable and deeply researched, it's a refreshingly complex portrait of a woman too often defined by her relationships with men. Readers who enjoyed the author's other Kennedy biographies will not be able to put this down. (July)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The veteran Kennedy family biographer brings fresh details and insights into the public and private life of a first lady like no other. Taraborrelli's nearly 25 years of research and interviewing sheds new light on every phase of Jacqueline Bouvier's life, including her marriages to John F. Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis; the sacrifices and choices she made when establishing her publishing career; fits, starts, and ends with various lovers in the wakes of those marriages; and her relationships with her rakish, adoring father, John "Black Jack" Bouvier, domineering but loving mother, Janet Bouvier Auchincloss, and doting, reliable stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss. Taraborrelli spares readers from slogging through a conventional chronology, instead offering detailed vignettes in tandem with the necessary facts from his subject's life that inform and enlighten. He details Jackie's decidedly weird relationship with her sister, Lee, a sibling rivalry involving their attractions to love, money, and power. He elegantly portrays how the horrifying trauma of the assassination of JFK and Jackie's attempts to reconcile the bizarre cocktail of tawdriness and genuine affection of their marriage were always under the surface. The author also capably describes Jackie's efforts to restore and revitalize Lafayette Park, the White House, and Grand Central Station as metaphors for her own self-improvement, independence, and growth as a modern woman in the latter half of the 20th century. Taraborrelli's firsthand knowledge of Jackie's career in publishing, which underscored her lifelong literary sensibility, enlivens the tale, and his descriptions of Jackie's editorial work with the likes of Michael Jackson--and her attempt to sign Frank Sinatra to write an autobiography (which dredged up uncomfortable truths about the company kept by JFK)--make clear the overwhelming intersection of power, celebrity, and fame in which Jackie found herself. The author understatedly conveys the many heretofore-unknown details of Jackie's "secret" life without resorting to lurid or salacious sensationalism. An absorbing and comprehensive account of one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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