SOCIAL SCIENCES

Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill

St. Martin's. Jan. 2018. 528p. notes. index. ISBN 9781250128010. $29.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250128034. BIOG
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Those enamored of the Kennedy mystique will enjoy this intimate look into the intertwined lives of the Bouvier, Auchincloss, Kennedy, and Radziwill families. Taraborrelli, a prolific author of popular biographies including the best-selling After Camelot, creates a tabloid-style story of money, power, politics, and family—a voyeuristic look into a world of patrician privilege. While Jackie Kennedy Onassis has been the subject of countless chronicles, less is known about details of her relationship with her mother, Janet Auchincloss, and sister Lee Radziwill. This sweeping account traces their relationships over the decades, including familiar events such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and obscure ones such as how Jackie's mother shared her "formula for good living" with her daughter. Relying on interviews, oral histories, original documents, and published sources, the author reveals personal details of the lives of these three women: the competitive tension between the sisters; poignant accounts of troubled marriages; and the tangled web that linked Lee, Jackie, and Aristotle Onassis. Readers are also introduced to the "other side of Camelot;" the lives of Jackie's half brother and half sister, for example.
VERDICT Engrossing for general readers. Historians may challenge some of the anecdotes and interpretations presented.
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