Jackie O: On the Couch is the second of Alma's "On the Couch" series to be published. It is a look inside the mind and life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. The book delves into Jackie’s childhood, and illuminates how she became the person she was. It also explores JFK’s background and the ways it affected his marriage. Jackie’s deep love for Jack, the cat and mouse game he played before their engagement, his early inattentiveness, along with details of his outrageous womanizing, and their happier times at the White House follows. A poignant description of Jack’s assassination and funeral is recounted.
The book also looks into the widow Jackie’s need for Aristotle Onassis. She debunks the idea that she married Ari purely for his money, and discloses previously unknown graphic details of her sexual awakening. The joyful early years and the gradual collapse of the marriage is described.
Jackie’s successful entry into the publishing world, and how the work helped to define her follows. A new Jackie emerges, which allows her to form the best relationship of her life, with the elderly, stout, and adoring Maurice Templesman, who gave her the love, devotion, and constancy she never received before. The book follows the progress of the non-Hodgkins Lymphoma disease that led to Jackie’s death at age 63, from her fierce denial to the gradual acceptance that she would not survive.
Excerpt
PROLOGUE
You may wonder why I have shied away from writing my autobiography, a memoir, or a set of memoirs. It’s pretty simple. Living my life has always been more important to me than writing about it. And, as you know, I have always valued my privacy. Now that I am terminally ill, I want to set the record straight—, though only for my family. People have viewed me either alternately as an icon, a role model to women all over the world who helped a grieving nation to heal, or as a fool for putting up with Jack’s outrageous philandering. Perhaps all of them are right.
Shakespeare asks, “What seest thou else / In the dark backward and abysm of time?” As I approach that “dark backward and abysm,” I need to record my story as truthfully and honestly as I can. Most important, I wish to dispel the lies that have been published about me. Shakespeare also wrote, “Speak me fair in death.” So before I die, I “speak me fair.” Please listen . . . and believe.
Professional Reviews
I Love this book
Jackie O: On the Couch
RATING: 5 STARS
Marylynne S. (Phoenix, AZ)
This review is from: Jackie O: On the Couch: Inside the Mind and Life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis (Hardcover)
I loved this book and couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing at one sitting; and now, I am re-reading it again, slowly and carefully relishing every little tidbit. Being of the Camelot generation, I have always been fascinated by the Kennedys. However, I certainly can't claim to have read every book written about them. Nevertheless, this book about Jackie was fascinating and enlightening: giving me so many facts and insights I never knew before. I loved the parts about Jackie's children; I laughed at the stories about Ethel; I bridled in reading about Joe Sr. and Jack's womanizing; and I was in awe at Jackie's survival skills. (I was also really surprised about the Dallas trip dream sequence and what it portended.) Give yourself a treat; and buy this book: it's well worth the time and money investment.
Jackie O. would approve
Jackie O: On the Couch:
RATING: 5 STARS
Clara Towson :In this fascinating psycho-biography, Dr. Alma H. Bond takes us into the eloquent and complex mind of the unforgettable Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. A much-remembered fashion icon throughout the 1960s, and famously reticent first lady of the assassinated president, John F. Kennedy, she is finally made available to readers. Exploring Onassis's lavish but demanding upbringing, two marriages, and one final relationship, Bond proves that this mysterious woman's voice is worth listening to. In addition, the book demonstrates how this glamorous but grieving widow deserves the appreciation and respect she did not always receive during her lifetime. Written in the first-person, Jackie O: On the Couch demonstrates convincingly what Onassis's voice would have been like had she actually written an autobiography. The reader discovers how this woman distinguished herself as a dedicated wife and mother, and later, as a hard-working and devoted book editor. Onassis lived through some of the most important times of history and attempted to pick up the pieces of her life after frequent mourning, and sometimes frequent media criticism. Fleshed out beautifully through descriptions and sentiments, this alluring icon's identity is, ultimately, fully and finally unveiled to readers in a gem of a book that many readers the world over will find irresistible."
Even Jackie O. would approve, I think.
Dispels the illusions of this iconic woman's life
This review is from: Jackie O: On the Couch: Inside the Mind and Life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis (Hardcover) The remarkable life and mind of Jackie
Jackie O: On the Couch:
RATING: 5 STARS
Kennedy Onassis is both intriguing and mysterious. But Dr. Alma H. Bond dispels the illusions of this iconic woman's life by threading fiction based in fact. Dr. Bond has read over 100 books about the widow of J.F.K. and has clearly become entranced and fascinated by the possibilities of such a unique human being as a character and narrator. Dr. Bond has crafted an enchanting narrator out of the idea of Jackie, teaching us facts about her very private life we may not know.
Readers who know much about the former First Lady will enjoy this novel for its thoughtful interpretations of events and people they are familiar with, while readers new to many of the facts about this American icon will find themselves enamored with Mrs. Kennedy, searching out facts about this very private woman's life.
The voice of this narrator is so well done, it feels less like Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy laying on the psychoanalytical couch and more like Jackie O chatting it up over mimosas. The narration sucks you in, makes you laugh, makes you cry, but most of all, it makes you think.
The scenes are vivid and dense, especially through the moments of John F. Kennedy's death. It is a relatively quick read considering how much it covers. A page-turner and impossible to put down, Jackie O is a must read.
I often see photos and posters of Marilyn Monroe and I have never personally gotten into the craze. In fact, there's a café I frequent in Boston, MA that has photos on the bathroom door and the female photo is of her. I am not going to be liked I am sure for saying this, but if this is some sort of iconic tribute, I'd really rather see Jackie. Although the last place her picture belongs is on a bathroom door.
This book covers just about everything I would want to know about Jackie, from her upbringing with a womanizing father all the way up to her untimely death. Did you know Jackie was a book editor at Viking Press? Her maturation through her relationships beginning with her understanding of her father to her last, and likely most successful, relationship with a male companion is explored. Jackie was in a culturally transitional period in American history that drove some women to suicide and others to over-experimentation, but she knew how to keep her eloquence, tact, and taste. Even in jeans and a T-shirt making her own instant coffee, the perpetually envied and ever elegant Jackie O.
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