Finding Jackie : a life reinvented / Oline Eaton.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Penetrates the mystique and unravels the myth with the best Jackie biography ever. --Kitty Kelley, New York Times bestselling author of Jackie Oh! and Oprah: A Biography
A brilliant biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, casting an era's biggest star of life in a new light for a new generation
In Finding Jackie , Oline Eaton resurrects the Jackie Kennedy Onassis who has been culturally erased, who we need now more than ever--not the First Lady who was a paragon of femininity, fashion, American wifeliness and motherhood, but rather the kaleidoscopic Jackie who emerged after the murder of her husband changed her world and ours. Here is the story of Jackie's reinvention into an adventurer, a wanderer, a woman and an idea in whom many Americans and people around the globe have deeply, fiercely wanted to believe.
Traumatized and exposed, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy nonetheless built a new life for herself in an America similarly haunted by upheaval. She dated and traveled relentlessly before scandalizing the world by marrying a foreigner, living abroad, climbing ruins, cruising the oceans, and wandering Europe braless and barefoot.
She was an era's most celebrated, exposed, beloved, reviled, written about, and followed star of life. Jackie's story--treated like a national soap opera and transmitted through newspapers, magazines, images, and TV during the 1960s and 1970s--became wired into America's emotional grid. Touching down everywhere from London, Paris, the Watergate, and 1040 Fifth Avenue to Skorpios, Athens, Capri, and Phnom Penh, Finding Jackie returns Jackie's narrative to its original context of a serialized drama unfurling alongside the Civil Rights movement, women's liberation, and the Vietnam War.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Scholar Eaton re-examines the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her striking debut. In reintroducing Onassis, Eaton writes of how "she was always one step ahead" and able to reinvent herself when necessary. Born into old money in Southampton, N.Y., in 1929, Onassis "consciously stepped outside the rarefied world she'd been born into" to become a photographer at the Washington Times-Herald after boarding school. Her 1953 marriage to John F. Kennedy (a "radical choice") put her on the world stage, and she later won widespread admiration for her glamorous turn as first lady and her remodel of the White House that brought American art into the spotlight. After JFK's assassination, Onassis redefined his presidency as "Camelot" before marrying Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis in 1968. Eaton hints at Onassis's sense of being tethered to the Kennedy family, describing how she attempted to construct a new identity as Mrs. Onassis and "having something of a feminist awakening" before Aristotle's death in 1975. Eaton closes with Jackie's decision to live "on her own terms," expertly drawing out Onassis's veiled longing to establish her own identity and be measured apart from her husbands. Feminists and pop culture fans will delight in this spirited reconsideration of an American icon. Agent: William LoTurco, LoTurco Literary. (Jan.)

Kirkus Book Review

A pop-culture study of the woman who was once known around the world. The first thing to know is that Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994) pronounced her name Jack-leen. The next is that her long-stated ambition was "not to be a housewife." While she had her foibles--including, Eaton chronicles, the ability to whirlwind her way across a tony boutique in a few minutes and rack up a $100,000 bill--she was also a person of considerable substance. She made some curious choices in life, including, by the author's account, her marriage to Aristotle Onassis, which was not happy, as reflected by the comparatively small sum of money she received when he died. Still, upon Jacqueline's own death in 1994, as if by some silent agreement in the world press, Wayne Koestenbaum noted that "her marriage to Onassis was erased with the absoluteness of Soviet regimes banishing dissidents from the historical record." Kennedy--so she was known in her last years, the Onassis name deleted--was eminently gossipworthy, and Eaton, who writes in a breezy style, doesn't refrain from throwing out red meat: Jackie complained about John F. Kennedy's womanizing; Onassis and Jackie had a 170-clause marriage contract; Jackie enjoyed a "champagne-tastes" hedonism, "so maybe Camelot wasn't such a magical era. Maybe America's queen had always been a bitch." The author also offers discerning observations, including Jackie's pulling Bobby Kennedy aside to say, "America's going to the dogs. I don't know why you want to be president." Eaton's offhand delivery, seemingly tossed off at times ("And who is this man she's marrying? He's most often portrayed as a pirate"), is better suited to a magazine article than a serious book, but readers will still glean a thing or two they might not have known before. A middling but sometimes insightful portrait of an American icon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.