DI News Author Series: Historical fiction - Jackie by Dawn Tripp

In this mesmerizing novel of the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, bestselling author Dawn Tripp crafts an intimate story of love and power, family and tragedy, loss, and reinvention. Tripp will be the guest speaker at the March 7 Daniel Island News Author Series.

JACKIE is the story of a woman who forged a legacy out of grief and shaped history even as she was living it—a deeply private person with a nuanced, formidable intellect. It is the story of a love affair, a complicated marriage, and the fracturing of identity that comes in the wake of unthinkable violence.

When Jackie meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy in Georgetown, she is twenty-one and dreaming of France. She has won an internship at Vogue, and she thinks Kennedy is not her kind of adventure: “Too American. Too good-looking. Too boy.” Yet she is drawn to his mind, his humor, and his drive. The chemistry between them ignites.

During the White House years, the love between two independent people deepens. Then, a motorcade in Dallas: “Three and a half seconds—that’s all it was—a slivered instant between the first shot, which missed the car, and the second, which did not. . . .A hypnotic burst of sunlight off her bracelet as she waved.”

This spellbinding novel is a window into the world of a woman who led many different lives: Jackie, Jacks, Jacqueline, Miss Bouvier, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Onassis, Jackie O. It is at once a deeply human story and a captivating work of imagination that comes right up against what she was thinking and feeling, what she was afraid of, fought for, and believed in.

Host or Publisher The Daniel Island News