When Jackie meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy in Georgetown, she is twenty-one and dreaming of France. She has won an internship at Vogue. Kennedy, she thinks, is not her kind of adventure: "Too American. Too good-looking. Too boy." Yet she is drawn to his mind, his humor, his drive. The chemistry between them ignites.
Tripp’s wonderful, pointillistic skill with physical description and the deft, empathetic leaps she takes — jumping off from letters, contemporary memoirs and photographs snapped of the former first lady — gives Jackie undeniable emotional punch ... As sensitively rendered as Jackie is, I imagine many of Onassis’s friends and fans rolling their eyes. They won’t applaud Tripp for concocting scenes, inventing dialogue and presuming to know how the real-life woman felt.
Tripp, who appends an extensive bibliography, has clearly done her research and integrates it seamlessly into the novel, which comes across as sympathetic to Jackie but not cloyingly so ... If the novel sometimes drifts into cliche... it’s redeemed by the close, intelligent, and not always generous attention that Jackie, often forced into the role of passive observer, pays to those around her.
Tripp brings Jackie and Jack’s romance to life through carefully crafted scenes, and offers a humanizing portrayal of Jackie’s complex love for her husband.
