Jacqueline Bouvier: An Intimate Memoir [Hardcover]

John H. Davis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471129453 | ISBN-13: 978-0471129455 | Publication Date: July 17, 1996 | Edition: 1

Critical Acclaim for Jacqueline Bouvier John Davis's intimate memoir of his beloved first cousin "Readers longing for a dignified and elegant approach to Jackie's early years will enjoy this biographical gem by John H. Davis." --Boston Herald "Goes a long way to highlight the formative influence of her privileged back-ground and her warm relationship with her father, the philandering Jack (Black Jack) Bouvier." --Los Angeles Times "Re-creates a colorful, fast-fading slice of American life as it flourished in the shadows of toll hedges and long lineages." --The Miami Herald "The most charming and reliable in the batch [of Jackie books] is Davis's memoir." --The Atlanta Journal and Constitution "Entertaining, a guilty pleasure." --The Associated Press "This tender memoir of Jackie's early years sheds much light on the future woman we all wanted to know but never could." --The Star-Ledger (Newark)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As a child, author John H. Davis spent summers with Jackie and the Bouviers and was like a member of the family. In this, his third book on the aristocratic clan, Davis covers Jackie's life until her first wedding. Mr. Davis possessed great disdain for Jackie's mother and includes many nasty details about her--including how she hired a young woman to trap her husband in verifiable infidelity. He also writes that a close friend of Jackie's father later moved to Texas and became the "principal mentor and friend" to Lee Harvey Oswald--a revelation that puts a new twist on the conspiracy theory.

From Publishers Weekly

Memoirs written by relatives of the rich and famous often try to settle scores or exploit distant ties. Not so that of Davis, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's first cousin, who has written several books on famed clans (The Guggenheims) and on his relatives by marriage (The Kennedys), as well as on his own folk (The Bouviers). Davis's mother, now 90, is Maude Bouvier, Jacqueline's aunt. Here he focuses on Jacqueline's (he never calls her Jackie) childhood and adolescence and concludes with her marriage to John F. Kennedy. He writes from the point of view of a contemporary who shared summers at Grampy Jack Bouvier's magnificent East Hampton estate. Davis watched Jacqueline as she grew into an accomplished rider and a charming, self-contained young woman. He also watched as her parents, "Black" Jack Bouvier and Janet Lee Bouvier, fought viciously for her attention and affection. They eventually divorced, and Jacqueline's father spent much of his life trying?unsuccessfully?to keep Jacqueline away from his former wife after she married into the wealthy Auchincloss family. Davis's probing into family sorrows is gentle. This was a world where the children ran wild but dressed for dinner, where anything could be charged to Grampy Jack at the clubs and stores but where financial difficulties lurked beneath the idyllic surface. Unlike so many books about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, this one actually adds to our understanding and appreciation of the woman she became. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (July 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471129453
• ISBN-13: 978-0471129455
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,129,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( O ) > Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book about Jackie's childhood, August 8, 2000

By 

Katie S (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jacqueline Bouvier: An Intimate Memoir (Hardcover)

This was one of the first books I read about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and though I've read many since, I still consider this one of the best. It is filled with reminisces of events experienced by the author, a cousin of Jackie's who kept in touch with her throughout her life. The author has done extensive research into both the Bouviers and the Kennedys in his other writings - this book is an interesting and informative combination of that research and his personal memories of Jackie as a child and young woman. Highly recommended to all who wish to learn more about the less documented part of Jackie's life.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent look at Jackie's early childhood., September 8, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Jacqueline Bouvier: An Intimate Memoir (Hardcover)

If one is interested in learning about Jackie Kennedy's early childhood and teen years, this is the perfect book to examine. The author, a cousin of the late First Lady, shared many of her early experiences and thus provides excellent primary source material. Also noteworthy are photographs from Jackie's childhood and teen years

3.0 out of 5 stars Needed more intimacy, October 8, 2011

By 

Beatlesfan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jacqueline Bouvier: An Intimate Memoir (Paperback)

John Davis offers quite a bit of detail about Jackie Kennedy's early life and psychological insight most will find interesting. He reveals Jackie's mom was a gold digger and influenced her daughter to be the same, looking for the guy who would take care of her financially, no matter what the cost. Jackie's mother also neglected her two daughters in her quest to find the sugar daddy second husband (which she did; this woman sounds like a major piece of work!). There's a lot of gossip here but Davis needed a better book editor -- as he meanders on about parts of the family no one cares about instead of sticking to Jackie. I can only give this tome three stars because, despite Davis' insider access, being Jackie's relative, he held back on certain stories. For example, he ends the book with Jackie getting married to JFK and her father devastated that he was prevented from walking her down the aisle. The reader is left hanging, however, because he ends the book there--without a winding up paragraph to say what the father/daughter relationship was like after that, when and how the father died, etc. Kind of important as Davis stresses throughout the book how close Jackie was to her dad, even making it seem like the attachment was almost sick on his part. We need to know what happened after the wedding, instead of this abrupt ending. Too bad this couldn't have been written and edited with more finesse because there is a lot here to fascinate rabid Jackie-philes.