Jack's Widow

Jackie was watched constantly, yet she remained an enigma, largely because she never spoke openly to the press. Eve Pollard looks past the polished image to explore the emotions behind it, pairing a candid, respectful portrait with the momentum of a suspense novel.

The story opens in the grim weeks after President John F. Kennedy's assassination and then traces her life backward and forward. It covers a painful childhood that prepared her for two demanding roles, hostess of the White House and wife of a man who was unfaithful to her. It also follows the hidden psychological strain of her marriage, as she struggled to hold onto her self-worth, and how that strain deepened when her husband's reckless love life came to light after his death.

After losing him, Jackie built a personal defense system against the friends and relatives who had helped her husband in his ongoing pursuit of other women. She turned to a range of strategies to protect herself and her children, from dark sunglasses to psychiatry, and from a second marriage to hard-nosed politics.

Pollard, one of the first writers to take on Jackie's biography, follows her early years as a senator's wife drawn into the intricate world of espionage, with dramatic consequences after her husband's murder. Drawing on extensive research, the book offers a detailed and believable account of its subject that is both surprising and entertaining.