Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story

Barbara Leaming

Oct 2014 · Sold by Macmillan

About this ebook

The instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller!
The untold story of how one woman's life was changed forever in a matter of seconds by a horrific trauma.

Barbara Leaming's extraordinary and deeply sensitive biography is the first book to document Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' brutal, lonely and valiant thirty-one year struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that followed JFK's assassination.

Here is the woman as she has never been seen before. In heartrending detail, we witness a struggle that unfolded at times before our own eyes, but which we failed to understand.

Leaming's biography also makes clear the pattern of Jackie's life as a whole. We see how a spirited young woman's rejection of a predictable life led her to John F. Kennedy and the White House, how she sought to reconcile the conflicts of her marriage and the role she was to play, and how the trauma of her husband's murder which left her soaked in his blood and brains led her to seek a very different kind of life from the one she'd previously sought.

A life story that has been scrutinized countless times, seen here for the first time as the serious and important story that it is. A story for our times at a moment when we as a nation need more than ever to understand the impact of trauma.

Ratings and reviews

Refusing to live her life defined by the narrow parameters of wealthy WASP society, Jackie marries rising star Jack Kennedy and struggles to find a meaningful role as a politician's wife and mother of two. Jack's assassination shatters her world and sets her a lonely path of a life - and decisions - based on fear as she struggles to overcome PTSD and find peace.

Do many known facts to read in this book. I feel like I understand the Kennedys now. I had no idea that ptsd was even an issue back in those days.

Good

About the author

BARBARA LEAMING is a New York Times bestselling author. Three of her biographies have been New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Her recent book, Churchill Defiant, received the Emery Reves Award from the International Churchill Centre. Leaming's articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Times of London, and other publications. She lives in Connecticut.