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Thank God I got to read this over the Christmas holiday! Otherwise, there is no way I would have been able to keep up my usual work activities and stay immersed in this fascinating and most detailed new biography of the inimitable Jackie O, AMERICA'S QUEEN: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford. It is immensely readable and doesn't exactly sugarcoat a lot of the myths that we already know about our American queen.
From birth to death and with all the adventures and travails in-between, Jackie's life reads like a daytime soap. But the smiling face of her young self on the back cover makes this a particularly painful story as well --- privilege and money can't save you from your destiny, and as Bradford so nicely puts together, Jackie was no different from any of us in that respect. AMERICA'S QUEEN really brings home the inequities and complexities of a life lived in the public eye for almost all of its 60-plus years.
Sure, we know all we want to know about how she survived Jack's cheating, wrestled with her conscience in raising her children apart from the Kennedy clan, worked in publishing when it was not exactly the planned path for a member of American royalty. She did everything in her sly way, got what she wanted with a twinkle in her eyes, but suffered the slings and arrows of her life the same way we all do. Bradford has the uncanny ability to write about things that could cause her family embarrassment even at this late date in such a fashion that you feel like you are getting firsthand news from a sincerely supportive friend --- this doesn't feel like gossip, although it certainly could be classified as such. With so many stories and quotes from friends and foes alike, it makes for an evenhanded and well-researched book.
AMERICA'S QUEEN: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford answers some of the many questions about why the world has always been fascinated by this woman. It is a great read, a nice long snowed-in weekend read (to which I can heartily attest), and will be sure to delight anybody whose appetite for biographies is dire and sharp.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
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