Finding Jackie: A Life Reinvented Spiral-Bound | January 31, 2023
Oline Eaton
★★★☆☆+ from 31 to 100 ratings
Finding Jackie: A Life Reinvented
“Penetrates the mystique and unravels the myth with the best Jackie biography ever.”—Kitty Kelley, New York Times bestselling author of Jackie Oh! and Oprah: A Biography
A brilliant biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, casting an era’s biggest “star of life” in a new light for a new generation
In Finding Jackie, Oline Eaton resurrects the Jackie Kennedy Onassis who has been culturally erased, who we need now more than ever—not the First Lady who was a paragon of femininity, fashion, American wifeliness and motherhood, but rather the kaleidoscopic Jackie who emerged after the murder of her husband changed her world and ours. Here is the story of Jackie’s reinvention into an adventurer, a wanderer, a woman and an idea in whom many Americans and people around the globe have deeply, fiercely wanted to believe.
Traumatized and exposed, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy nonetheless built a new life for herself in an America similarly haunted by upheaval. She dated and traveled relentlessly before scandalizing the world by marrying a foreigner, living abroad, climbing ruins, cruising the oceans, and wandering Europe braless and barefoot.
She was an era’s most celebrated, exposed, beloved, reviled, written about, and followed “star of life.” Jackie’s story—treated like a national soap opera and transmitted through newspapers, magazines, images, and TV during the 1960s and 1970s—became wired into America’s emotional grid. Touching down everywhere from London, Paris, the Watergate, and 1040 Fifth Avenue to Skorpios, Athens, Capri, and Phnom Penh, Finding Jackie returns Jackie’s narrative to its original context of a serialized drama unfurling alongside the Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation, and the Vietnam War.
"Feminists and pop culture fans will delight in this spirited reconsideration of an American icon."
—Publishers Weekly
“John F. Kennedy said: ‘What makes journalism so fascinating and biography so interesting is the struggle to answer that single question: What’s he like? No more struggling on the subject of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Oline Eaton’s Finding Jackie penetrates the mystique and unravels the myth with the best Jackie biography ever. Brava, Brava, Brava!”
—Kitty Kelley, New York Times bestselling author of Jackie Oh!
"The good news, as Oline Eaton demonstrates, is that we are still trying to find Jackie. This biography resists the temptation to say too much, and thus we get a serious and entertaining exploration of a person and the persona constructed by the subject herself and the media."
—NY Sun
"Heavily sourced, masterfully told—and even fastidiously illustrated—Eaton’s “Finding Jackie” is rooted in modern culture, but told for an audience that craves more than surface-level celebrity. It’s a must-read for those interested in many topics—from First Ladies to media history, consumer economic trends, and, of course, Jackie O herself."
—K Street Magazine
"Looks with compassion and insight into the glorious and tragic life of 'Jackie O.'"
—The Beacon
“Oline Eaton tells the Jackie Onassis story with riveting precision and a warm, intuitive sense of how the enigmas of a celebrity’s life can entrance us. Eaton manages to move beyond myth and gossip—however delectable—into a fact-based assessment of the traumas, conflicts, and heroism of the woman whom we all knew as simply ‘Jackie.’ This book’s insights bring Jackie into the 21st century; in Eaton’s responsive, empathic depiction of this historical figure, we can begin to grasp a splendor—a charisma, an accomplishment, a finesse—we hadn’t yet adequately reckoned.”
—Wayne Koestenbaum, poet, critic, artist, and author of Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon
“Finding Jackie is an extraordinary achievement—a fresh, riveting exploration of one of the world’s most written-about women. With great ingenuity and compassion, and in beautiful prose, Oline Eaton brings this fascinating figure to a new generation, and explodes dusty ideas about what biography is and can be. Anyone interested in celebrity, fame, media, and myth-making, or merely women in general, will find much to delight in here.”
—Kate Bolick, New York Times bestselling author of Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own
“The best book about JKO I’ve ever read. Not Jackie the icon but Jackie the woman—in all her restless, spiky glory.”
—Elizabeth Winder, author of Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath In New York, Summer 1953
“In Finding Jackie, Oline Eaton has illuminated the timeline of the iconic Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis with forgotten and overlooked episodes that are telling and vibrant, encapsulating her complicated existence as a private person and aspiration mythology as a public persona. The author places Jackie within a substantive popular culture context, giving a broad grasp of just why this individual was so important in her times and yet timelessly endures in the collective imagination.”
—Carl Sferrazza Anthony, author of Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy
“A necessary biography contextualizing Jackie, an enigmatic embodiment of American womanhood and all its multitudes.”
—Joshunda Sanders, author of I Can Write the World
“Her name once seemed to float ‘electric on the air,’ as Andy Warhol said of Jackie. Oline Eaton captures the electricity and explains it in this exceptional biography of a woman who dazzled, inspired, and suffered. This is the rare biography that makes the familiar seem fresh with deep research, delightful prose, and unerring insight. Readers will find Jackie more interesting than ever, and that’s saying a great deal."
—Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Ali: A Life
“Informed by the latest scholarship and with an irreverent eye for tabloid excess, Oline Eaton achieves the remarkable in this book. She turns Jackie into super-fuel for a new generation. She also makes finding Jackie fun.”
—William Kuhn, author of Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books
“Finding Jackie is an utterly original and beautifully written perspective on the former First Lady. Oline Eaton has achieved something remarkable, casting Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a woman we thought we knew, in a completely new light, putting her in the context of her times—and ours.”
—Matthew Algeo, author of Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip
“Jackie Kennedy has long reigned as America’s best known, but least understood First Lady. In this engaging narrative, Oline Eaton reveals the thoughtful and sensitive woman that was obscured by her celebrity.”
—Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama
A scholar of biographical writing and a writer of creative nonfiction, Oline Eaton examines the intersections of celebrity, feelings, feminism, language, and trauma. She holds degrees from Mississippi State University, the University of Chicago, and King's College London, and teaches first year writing as a full-time lecturer at Howard University. She lives in Washington, DC with her cats, Claude and Marcel.