Historical novel paints mesmerizing portrait of Jackie Kennedy Onassis

We’ve all heard the name Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

 

And we think we know most of the story behind her life — her marriage to John F. Kennedy, the Camelot years, her classic elegance and graceful style, her intellect and wit, the tragic three-and-a-half seconds in Dallas that changed everything, and her life beyond the White House. 

 

But do we really know who Jackie was? What she was thinking and feeling? What she was most afraid of? What she fought for and believed in?

 

According to bestselling author Dawn Tripp, there is more — much more — to the story. In her latest book, aptly and simply titled “Jackie: A Novel,” Tripp seeks to uncover the essence of Onassis’s life and the woman behind the very public persona.

 

“She was fascinating,” said Tripp, who spent years researching Onassis for the book. “And there are all these corners of who she was that have not necessarily been explored. She was so complex, and she was so interesting. And she and Jack were often the two smartest people in the room. And yet her life has not been considered through that lens.”

 

The idea for the book was sparked some years ago while Tripp was visiting a bookstore with her son. He found a book of Onassis’s favorite poems, which were selected and introduced by her daughter, Caroline Kennedy. 

 

There was a line in the book that jumped off the page for Tripp.

 

“Caroline said she reflected on how from both of her parents, but specifically from her mother, she had inherited a love of poetry, not just for the pleasure it can bring, but a faith in the power of ideas and the words we use to express them as the greatest power that we have,” Tripp recalled.

 

“And I read that, and it was like a little bolt of lightning. And that was when I first asked myself that question: Who was she underneath the woman we think we see?”

 

Tripp sought to answer that question, poring over anything and everything she could find to uncover details that others may have missed about Onassis’s life. What she learned helped her craft a new, mesmerizing story written in first person about an iconic and often misunderstood woman who shaped history as she was living it.

 

“With Jackie, she’s so often seen through her sense of style, her dress, her clothes, her hair, the lens of her husband’s affairs, not through the lens of what she believed in, what mattered to her formidable intelligence,” Tripp said. “And those were the dimensions of her that were fascinating to me.”

 

Linking what she learned from research with the historical record was crucial, noted Tripp. And she discovered a number of interesting details about Jackie that most may not know. She bit her nails. She read works by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr for fun. She was known as a prankster in high school. She was an incredible athlete. And she had a complicated marriage that she and her husband were just beginning to figure out before he was assassinated. 

 

“She wasn’t quite sure that she was doing the right thing (before they married),” Tripp added. “And she really did question it. And she was crazy about him.”

 

Tripp also recalled reading a passage about Jackie written by her daughter, Caroline, in which she described how her mother loved looking out the window at her home in Martha’s Vineyard, just watching the natural movements of the world around her, such as a heron visiting a pond.

 

“To understand that there is wonder in that moment,” Tripp said. “Sometimes life’s that simple. It really is. And I feel like she understood that. And I don’t know that she’s ever really been considered for how deeply committed she was to those in-between moments of life.”

 

Dawn Tripp will be the featured speaker at The Daniel Island News Author Series to discuss “Jackie” on Friday, March 7, at 1 p.m., at the Daniel Pointe Retirement Center on Robert Daniel Drive. To reserve a spot, visit bit.ly/dinews_jackie.