America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - Hardcover

The Kennedys were - to a very great extent still are - America's Royal Family. Like the real thing, their reputation has taken a considerable bashing in the last couple of decades: JFK using the White House as a knocking shop; Edward's drunkenness and womanising, not to mention Chappaquiddick and Monroe's death. Jacqueline Kennedy first blotted her copybook when she married Onassis, a move that was seen as having more to do with avarice than love. But she was largely forgiven - after all, she had suffered for her country. But her married life accounts for only 17 years in total, and Bradford here examines the not uneventful balance of her existence. The grieving widow, the working mother, the greedy shopaholic, the intensely private public figure who, from 1963 until her death, never gave an interview. Yet even her detractors would testify to her loyalty and generosity of spirit, setting her faults against her difficult childhood and the tragedies of later life. The publishers are keeping the content securely under wraps but they are saying Bradford draws on interviews with those who knew Jackie and Jack which paint "a chilling picture of rich people running a country". There are, apparently, many revelations about her personal life, and Bradford sheds new light on the question of Onassis' will, over which Jackie and her stepchildren argued in the funeral cortege.

Jackie Bouvier's privileged upbringing instilled rigid self-control, while her expedient marriage into the overwhelming Kennedy clan consolidated her determination. Revealing new testimonies from many of the couple's friends show the profound complexities both of this apparently very public relationship, and of her controversial marriage to Onassis. Here it is, the private Jackie - neglected wife, vigilant mother, obsessive shopper and working widow - whose contradictory and fascinating nature is illuminated by all that Bradford has discovered.