Publisher Description
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.
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Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis provides suggestive evidence that her subject suffered from the clinical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, including flashbacks, insomnia, numbness, avoidance, fear, depression, and anger. ... Her documentation -- which includes Jackie's remarks to intimates, as well as her behavior -- is compelling. Interpreting the post-assassination life through the lens of PTSD turns out to be a fruitful way of making sense of Jackie's sometimes odd-seeming choices.
—
The Boston Globe
About the Authors
Barbara Leaming is the author of the New York Times bestseller Katharine Hepburn. She was for many years professor of theater and film at Hunter College. Her articles have appeared in Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine. She lives in Connecticut.
Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker was nominated for a Nebula
and Hugo Award, won the Locus Award for best science-fiction novel, and was
named Steampunk Book of the Year by steampunk.com. She is also the author of Dreadnought, Boneshaker’s sequel, and of
the near-contemporary fantasy Fathom.
She debuted to great acclaim with a trilogy of Southern gothic ghost
stories featuring heroine Eden Moore wich included Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Wings
to the Kingdom, and Not Flesh nor
Feathers. Born in Tampa, Florida, she earned her Master’s in rhetoric at
the University of Tennessee. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her
husband, Aric, and a fat black cat named Spain.
About the Narrators
Kate Reading has recorded hundreds of audiobooks across many genres, over a thirty year plus career. Audie Awards: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (mystery), Breasts (non-fiction), Bellwether (fiction), and Words of Radiance (fantasy). Among other awards, she has been recognized with: the ALA Booklist best of 2019 for Bowlaway (fiction), AudioFile Magazine Voice of the Century, Earphones Awards, Narrator of the Year, Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Publisher’s Weekly’s Listen-Up Award. She records at her home studio, Madison Productions, Inc., in Maryland.
Wil Wheaton is an award–winning actor, voice artist, author, and audiobook narrator. Among his movie credits are Stand by Me and Toy Soldiers. His many television credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Big Bang Theory, and Generator Rex. As a narrator of more than a dozen audiobooks, he has twice won the prestigious Audie Award, twice been a finalist for the Audie, and earned an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine.
Eliza Foss is an actress who has appeared in numerous theaters in New York City and around the country. She has narrated over thirty books and short stories, been featured in AudioFile magazine, and won five AudioFile Earphones Awards for her narrations.