Turning the life of one of the country's iconic women into chick lit is nonsensical at best, exploitive at worst, yet Eve Pollard, author of the 1971 biography Jackie has done, or attempted to do, just that.

The 'story' begins at the moment that Jackie Kennedy is about to lay her husband, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, into the ground. Not only has she lost her husband, she has lost the defining stamp of her life and must now, quite literally, find out who she is meant to be for the rest of it. The struggle is only complicated further as the truth of JFK's perfidy is revealed; Jackie must come to grips with the possibility that her marriage was a sham. As the country is devastated by two more assassinations, that of Martin Luther King Jr. and her brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy, she is infused with a growing fear for the life of her children as well as her own and she looks for a haven. Pollard offers that Jackie became an operative for the CIA, which led to her involvement with Onassis and her eventual marriage to him.

The contention, offered as it is amidst the context of Jackie's fear and search for identity, could almost be accepted. Unfortunately, the author had, earlier in the story, contorted fact so out of proportion, that any of her historical suppositions are, from that point on, rendered unbelievable.

Overstepping the bounds of historical fiction, Pollard manipulated the truth of Marilyn Monroe's death, stating that it took place on the one-year anniversary of JFK's death. In truth the famous movie star died before he did. The huge dichotomy seemed too much of a distortion, too desperate an act; one done solely to make the case of JFK as an adulterer (not that it's needed) worse. Unfortunately, the misinformation hurts the author more than it helps; suddenly all her facts are suspect and her motivation questionable.

The book reads more non-fiction than fiction: it's written in the past tense instead of the literary present and it abounds with flashback after flashback. The fictional plot is weak and hard to believe on an illusory level. Wrapped in a bright pink book jacket with 'chick lit' art, the work is not to be taken seriously. Interest in the dynamic, charismatic and enigmatic Jackie Kennedy Onassis is better served by the hundreds of other books available.

Donna Russo Morin
© November 2006