Review by Booklist Review
Billed as the first biography of Jackie since her death, Spoto's account does include some new material here about her illness, how she dealt with it, and her last days. Much of the rest, however, will be familiar to veteran Jackie watchers: her unhappy childhood as the daughter of divorced parents; her troubled married life with John Kennedy, which saw its happiest days in the few months before his assassination; her surprising marriage to Ari Onassis; and her last years as a gainfully employed book editor. What is different about this book is its tone. Rather than gossipy, it's almost reverential. Veteran biographer Spoto portrays Jackie as gracious, smart, kind, and loving, an understanding wife and a consummate mother. Although she gets depressed, she almost never gets angry. She faces her death with what can only be described as spunk. Spoto tries to singlehandedly dispel every rumor that ever tarnished Jackie's reputation: she didn't take a million dollars from old Joe Kennedy to stay with Jack, and she didn't take money upfront from Ari, either. She got along famously with Onassis' daughter, Christina; Onassis wasn't planning to divorce her before his death; the wife and daughters of her last companion, Maurice Templesman were on friendly terms with him, despite the fact he and Jackie were a couple for 12 years. And, oh yes, allegations that she had an affair with Robert Kennedy are nothing but nasty lies. Perhaps it is all true the way Spoto paints it. In any case, it makes a lovely, even gracious story. Just like Jackie. (Reviewed December 1, 1999)0312246501Ilene Cooper
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Veteran film biographer Spoto (Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman, etc.) does a masterful job of capturing--and explaining--the complex personality of a figure who was arguably the most important icon of American womanhood of her day. Particularly attentive to the ways in which his subject both shaped and was shaped by American social history, Spoto finds that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, whose stated ambition upon graduating from high school in 1947 was "not to be a housewife," virtually embodied the shifting and often contradictory notions of ideal womanhood that defined her generation. A fierce intellectual and a compulsive shopper, a craver of solitude who nevertheless shone in the spotlight, a snob with a strong social conscience, a would-be career woman who also sought out the security of marriage to wealthy, prominent husbands, Jackie is indeed a study in contradictions. But Spoto convincingly accounts for each facet of her personality as a consequence of her upbringing (as the child of unhappily wed, social-climbing parents), of a cultural climate that at once encouraged women to nurture their talents and expected them to view themselves primarily as wives and mothers, and of her inclinations and abilities. While this is an unreservedly sympathetic and admiring portrait, it is also a candid one, detailing the ups and downs of Jackie's marriages and of her other relationships. Spoto concludes that Jackie found personal and professional fulfillment in her later years: in her relationships with her children and with Maurice Tempelsman, and in her career as an editor--a vocation at which, he maintains, she truly excelled. 32 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Spoto has taken on Marilyn, Marlene, and Diana (among others), so why not Jackie Kennedy? (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Celebrity biographer Spoto (Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman, 1997, etc.) glides smoothly across the silken surface of the life of one of this century's most famous women. Seldom is heard a discouraging word in this tribute. In its three sections (Miss Bouvier, Mrs. Kennedy, and Mrs. Onassis) Spoto has set himself a difficult task: to force into the foreground of the Kennedy legend a woman who spent most of her adult life'the post-assassination portion'seeking the shadows. Accordingly, he emphasizes her ``remarkable ability as a quick sketch artist''; her skills as a ``hilarious mimic''; her grace on horseback; her failed first engagement in 1952; her broken ankle (suffered in a game of touch football with the Kennedys); her leading role in the publication of JFK's Profiles in Courage (1956); her devotion to culture and the arts (Spoto convincingly portrays her as a true intellectual rather than a dilettante); the ``almost manic discontent'' she experienced during the years immediately after the assassination; her lucrative, laissez-faire marriage to Aristotle Onassis; and her career as an editor, first at Viking (she resigned after a misunderstanding involving the publication of a novel featuring Sen. Edward Kennedy), then at Doubleday, where in the 1980s, says Spoto, she ``produced some of the most interesting books of the decade.'' Spoto struggles to explain Jackie's apparent acceptance of JFK's many extramarital affairs (perhaps she ``simply decided that a certain profligacy was part of a man's character''), and he seems determined to establish her as an American queen, asserting that she and JFK ``adopted precisely the style of the modern British monarchy.' Some of his observations, however, are ludicrous'for instance, that her composure derives from her ``alliance with horses,'' or that she was the ``first non-Hollywood star in American history'' (Charles Lindbergh? Babe Ruth?). Uncritical, unoriginal, sometimes downright sappy'just like most love letters. (32 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
