Just Jennifer

Jackie After O by Tina Cassidy (It Books, May 2012)

Jackie Kennedy Onassis may have been the most recognizable women in the world beginning in the late 1950’s when her very attractive, young husband was elected to be president of the United States.  With the same passion she approached life and impeccable taste, during her thousand days in the White House, she with a team of designers restored America’s home, raised her two children and became the symbol of a nation’s mourning as she walked behind her husband’s casket to Arlington where he was buried after his assassination in Dallas.  Five years later, Jackie surprised her family and her nation when she married Greek shipping magnet Aristotle Onassis, almost twenty years her senior.  She moved a young Caroline and Patrick to the Greek Island where Ari lived until she realized her children needed to be in the United States and moved her children back to the Manhattan of her youth.  There Jackie reveled in the culture and architecture available, essentially becoming estranged from Ari.  After reading that Grand Central Terminal was to be turned into a modern office complex, she lent her support to the Municipal Art Society and became the driving force to save the Beaux Arts building and restore it to its present glory.  In 1975, Jackie received word that Ari was in grave health and flew to his side in Greece where she and his daughter Christina moved Ari to Paris where he would spend the last months of his life, thought Jackie would not be at his side when he died.  Once more Jackie found herself a widow with the world’s eyes on her, especially as Christina began planting stories that Jackie and Ari were on their way to a divorce and that he had all but cut his extravagant wife out of his will.  Frustrated and not sure which path her life should now take, Jackie took this time to reexamine where she was in her life and where it should go from here.  Jackie returned to her journalism roots, writing some pieces for The New Yorker, and landing a job at Viking, a publishing house where she was a consulting editor, publishing a number of books before her death in 1994. 

This well documented book focuses on Jackie’s reemergence as a woman on her own in 1975, but examines the events in her life that led to this pivotal moment.  This small, concise book is well documented with many endnotes citing primary sources and will peak readers’ interest to delve into the many full length books in the bibliography.  Tina Cassidy has focused on a small portion of this American icon’s life, offering fresh insight and providing inspiration.