Reading Jackie

October 18, 2010
During the last two decades of her life, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis worked on nearly 100 books with varying degrees of responsibility as an editor, first at Viking—she resigned after being castigated by the New York Times about a Viking thriller with a Ted Kennedy–like protagonist as an assassination target—and then at Doubleday, which promised to avoid any similar embarrassments. Her love of dance led to Onassis publishing a biography of Fred Astaire and autobiographies of Martha Graham, Judith Jamison, and Gelsey Kirkland. Kuhn (The Politics of Pleasure: A Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli) is particularly dismissive of Kirkland and her then-husband/collaborator Greg Lawrence's bestselling tell-all accusing George Balanchine of cruelties; not coincidentally, Lawrence is the author of a competing book, Jackie as Editor. With biographies of Clara Bow and Jean Harlow, the quietly feminist Onassis insisted on getting beyond publicity photo images to tell a woman's true story, says Kuhn. Being seen as royalty herself as the widow of JFK, the often imperious Onassis commissioned more than a dozen books on the royalty of India, ancient Egypt, Versailles, and Romanov Russia. Although this lucid, amply detailed catalogue of Onassis's publishing projects offers a window into her passions and opaque personality, it is far from what Kuhn dubs "the only autobiography she ever wrote"—most readers will not find it revelatory.

October 1, 2010

A clever, surprisingly substantial take on the life of Jacqueline Onassis (1929 –1994).

Kuhn (History/Carthage Coll; The Politics of Pleasure: A Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli, 2006, etc.) admiringly portrays this American icon as a bookish creature born to uncertain privilege who embraced her more wealthy, connected husbands for security rather than a meeting of artistic minds. "Jackie," as the author calls her throughout, came into her own as an editor only after second husband Aristotle Onassis died. Kuhn asserts that through her publishing list of nearly 100 books, first at Viking, then at Doubleday, this most private public person truly revealed what she cared passionately about. The author's brisk, officious, often repetitive narrative moves quickly over Jackie's early career, characterized by the thwarting of her earliest desires to be a ballet dancer and then a writer. Landing a job at Viking in 1975 fulfilled a kind of dream postponed—she had won Vogue's Prix de Paris for her essay as a 21-year-old college student, gaining her an internship at the magazine's Paris office, only to be forced by her mother to decline. She also found an important new mentor in former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. Through Vreeland, Martha Graham and Bill Moyers, she developed her first successful books. The author traces Jackie's professional development, from a "shy celebrity recruit" to a macher who could bring in big names via books by Michael Jackson, Naguib Mahfouz and Gelsey Kirkland. Kuhn argues that Jackie touched on forbidden themes in her own life—her husband's adultery, the humiliation of marriage, political machinations—only through her list, including such books as Barbara Chase-Riboud's controversial novel Sally Hemings (1979) and Elizabeth Crook's novel about Sam Houston and Eliza Allen, The Raven's Bride (1991). In between chronicling the titles shepherded by Jackie, Kuhn offers delicious tidbits of gossip, such as Jackie's evident glee and pride at her salary increase and promotion to senior editor.

Both respectful and scintillating.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010

Kuhn (history, Carthage Coll.; The Politics of Pleasure: A Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli) has previously written about historical figures from royalty or public life. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was both to most Americans. Kuhn examines her life not through her connections to famous men, but through her own editorial legacy. During the last 20 years of her life, Onassis worked as an editor at Viking then Doubleday, helping to bring into print nearly 100 books. Kuhn aims to show how her work on these books created a record that reveals a great deal of her personality. Straight off, the concept just seems right. This approach is not only more hands-off than traditional methods but also highlights the part of Onassis's life that was fully her responsibility. Kuhn conducted extensive interviews with people who worked with Onassis on her books and provides rigorous footnotes. He also includes a complete list of titles she edited and a list of her own published work. VERDICT This is a revealing, readable, and insightful book. Readers of biographies of iconic figures will eat this up, as may 20th-century American history or women's studies buffs. Kuhn's respectful approach would probably have met with Onassis's approval.--Audrey Snowden, Sunset, ME

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2010
In his prologue, Kuhn quotes John F. Kennedy, Jr.s statement that his mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, was at the time of her death surrounded by her friends and her family and her books. Building on the theme that Jackies love of books and words helped define who this intensely private woman really was, he provides a biography of Jackie via the books she read and loved during the course of her richly complex personal life, and, more important, the books and authors she championed and nurtured as an editor in her professional life. The theme is an interesting one, though Kuhn perhaps takes it a bit too far, asserting that her books are the autobiography she never wrote. Hyperbole aside, analyzing Jackies editorial choices does provide a fascinatingalbeit limitedglimpse into what moved her soul and motivated her choices. Voracious readers will relate to Jackies love of literature and appreciate this quasibiographical booklist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)