Astute observations on an iconic figure who is apparently of perennial interest.
Sociological attempt to situate the different “Jackies” amid the country’s hopes and fears during a fraught time.
Historian Dunak (As Long As We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America) takes an academic approach to the nation’s obsession with Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (JKO, as she is generally called), seeing her as a mirror of how American ideals of womanhood evolved over the decades. The author's thorough coverage moves through stages starting from JKO’s days as an “Inquiring Camera Girl” at the Washington Times-Herald, to her years first as a senator’s wife and then as first lady, to her time as a tragic widow and national icon, to the second marriage that made her a "Fallen Queen," and into her final decades as a professional woman in her own right. “JKO often served as a barometer for articulated and idealized views about American women—how they should behave, what they should value,” Dunak writes. Drawing on a wealth of research and archival sources, the author combs media coverage and private and public accounts of JKO over her lifetime (1929-1994) and reveals how she “met expectations of…womanhood, and then she subverted them.” For example, she was ultrafeminine and stylish as Kennedy’s wife yet had worked before marriage, preferred riding horses to campaigning, and smoked cigarettes, rather scandalously. She was nothing like previous matronly first ladies, such as Mamie Eisenhower, embodying instead the youthful cultural elegance emerging in the 1960s. Kennedy’s team soon learned that her common-man touch could be Kennedy’s best political asset. After the assassination, she was universally admired for the majestic way she handled the aftermath and funeral. Yet her resistance to taking up the liberal causes of the dead president, her seeming recession into the life of a rich, frivolous socialite, eroded public sympathy. Marriage to Ari Onassis shortly after Robert Kennedy’s assassination shocked the nation, yet it was the beginning of JKO’s emergence as her own person. Although always a symbol of the nation’s cultural expectations, she claimed her right to her autonomy.
Astute observations on an iconic figure who is apparently of perennial interest.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781479830565
Page Count: 368
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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