This week I’d like to focus on a terrific book about a presidential wife. No, not Melania. A woman that I had grossly underestimated. Again, not Melania.
I hadn’t realized how bright, focused, complicated and worldly Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was until I read bestselling author Dawn Tripp’s latest novel Jackie. Grounded in historical research, Dawn captures the essence of the woman behind the myth, the enigma that was Jackie.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I think it’s my favorite book this year, and I only recommend books I really like. It’s beautifully written, a captivating read, even the second time around. The Washington Post said, “To write a book on someone who has already been relentlessly scrutinized is a daring enterprise.” And all I can say is, thank you Dawn for daring. Below is our Q&A which has been edited for clarity and brevity. And you can read more from our Q&A on 26 here. Best of all, you can listen to the full episode on Elena Meets the Author here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Dawn: Thank you so much for having me here. I’m thrilled to be here.
Elena: I’m so excited to have you here. Jackie died 30 years ago this year. In your book you have a quote from historian E.L. Doctorow,
“The historian will tell you what happened. And the novelist will tell you what it felt like.” Later in your excellent novel, you write: “No one wants to know the real story, the private story, the evolution of a woman’s interior life… They tell us the story of what happened to her. And in the world’s eyes, usually what happened to a woman is men.”
Dawn, I’d love to hear how you first realized there was so much more to Jackie than meets the eye.
It was actually five years before I started working on this book. My son had brought home The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis by Caroline Kennedy for me to read aloud to my sons at bed-time. I read from the introduction which had been written by Caroline. And while I’d known that Jackie had a passion for books, I’d never considered her mind, her psyche, her emotional life as a reader.
In Caroline’s introduction she talked about how books had been central to her mother’s childhood, and how she ensured that books were central to Caroline’s childhood. And she talked about how both JFK and Jackie shared an intimate love of books, and the power of stories, and how Jackie would share poems with Jack, and he would integrate them into his speeches. He would ask Jackie for her perspective on documents written in French.
At the end of the introduction Caroline reflected on how her parents, her brother and she had faith in the power of ideas and how the words we use to describe our ideas is the greatest power we have.
I remember reading that sentence and it was like a bolt of lightning. I thought, who was she? I thought there never has been a narrative built around this extraordinary woman’s intellect. She was so smart. She had a passion for literature, art, history, travel and not travel for luxury, but travel to learn about other cultures’ traditions and histories.
One of the things I loved about your book was not just getting to know and admire Jackie, but learning about the love story between her and Jack.
That was a dimension of their story that I wasn’t expecting to find. In the ten years that it took to research and write this book, that was the thing that surprised me the most. They were in love. I think we sometimes forget just how young they were. It was a young, complicated marriage.
I was curious about why she was drawn to him. She knew about his reputation as a womanizer. She was drawn to his mind, how smart he was, how he was constantly asking questions. She was drawn to his vulnerability, the fact that he loved to read.
I find the way she reacted to JFK’s affairs fascinating. She was so strong and tactical. One time when JFK strayed after the children were born she told him, ‘you know, your children might hear about this. They’re going to look at you differently.’ And he ended that liaison immediately.
Yes, when his affairs became more public, she realized how the public would react and how impactful that would be to her, to someone who was so private. As she became more aware of what was going on, she became more uncompromising. I think that can happen to women over time. Actually, that doesn’t work anymore. That behavior has to stop.
I go to events and one of the questions I get asked again and again is what about Jack’s affairs. And yes, they’re in the novel to a certain extent, but that was not what was interesting to me. I feel like we are always talking about the weight of this woman’s life and her choices through the lens of her husband’s affairs. She was so much more interesting, so much more expansive. It was a piece of her life, but it did not circumscribe her life.
Usually, when I finish a book, I’m done. I move on. But with Jackie, I’m still interested in her. I continue to be intrigued by the range and scope of her, not just her mind, but her passion for life. And her respect for the imperfect. We sometimes think of her as so perfect, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect everything.
And yet, there’s a great quote from her when she’s reflecting on the photography she did when she was working at the Times Herald. She said the picture is boring if there’s not something imperfect about it. She recognized that sometimes our flaws are where things become revelatory.
Can you tell me about her passion for life?
There’s this phenomenal video of her waterskiing in 1962. She was an incredible water-skier. It’s not just her grace and beauty, but her athleticism. She’s on one ski weaving back and forth. Then there’s another cut where she’s skiing with John Glenn, the astronaut. And a third where she’s skiing holding four-year-old Caroline (who is skiing between her mother’s legs). She wanted to introduce her daughter to the water, the spray, the sun, the light. It just told me so much about who she was as a mother.
I found an image of Jackie swinging Caroline through the surf. Jackie has a white shirt on, Chino pants rolled up. She’s swinging Caroline by the arms through the surf. Her hair is kind of crazy and she’s soaking wet. And she looks so happy, so alive, so free.
And there’s another candid snapshot of her and Jack on a sailboat. They’re scrunched together laughing. Their smiles are so big.
Your book is divided into three parts: Her marriage to Jack, then Ari and then her life as a woman who works because she wants to. Do you think she was happy in that third part of her life?
I do. She had had a lot of loss, but I think in the last two decades of her life she was finally creating a life that was on her own terms. She really loved to work. She loved routine. She was also very grounded in nature. She bought a piece of land on Martha’s Vineyard and laid out the house with a piece of string. She wanted it to be a house the children would want to come home to. She was always close to her children. In one interview she said she often thought it was the best thing she ever did. Her children were at the forefront of her mind and her life and her choices.
Thank you so much!
October 2024
Elena, I recently read the new “Jackie” book and really enjoyed it! Leslie
I’m so glads you liked the book, Jackie. I wish my mother was able to read it. I bet she’d love it.
xx, elena