Jackie Stories 2-3

For many people, Jackie was beyond criticism. People who came from her own background, however, were often more detached. They could be more forceful with her and sometimes more openly critical of her than others were.

Nan Talese was one of the most important people in American publishing at the end of the 20th century. Nan and Jackie both grew up as bookish debutantes in and around New York. When Nan and Jackie worked at the same publisher in the 1990s, a muted rivalry arose between them.

Louis Auchincloss was a novelist of Manhattan's elite. He was also a distant relation of Jackie's by marriage. They'd known each other since they were young. When he came to write books which Jackie edited, she discovered he could be more difficult than her other authors. He did what few others did. He told her the truth, though Auchincloss' honesty could also be malicious.

Photographs accentuate her style and flair, but it's Jackie's struggles with social equals that reveal the hidden, human dimensions of the world's most famous woman.