New York City author and psychoanalyst, Alma H. Bond, dove inside the head of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier “Jackie” Kennedy Onassis in her new book, Jackie O: On the Couch. After years of meticulous research, Bond combined her skills as writer and shrink to create a character so believable you feel as though Jackie O is in your living room.
Jackie O is a fast read filled with intimate details of this fiercely private woman’s life. It’s as if Jackie herself is baring her soul to you. The book covers her childhood: “Nobody could change my mood as easily as my mother. Her carping criticism probably did more to mold my perfectionist personality than anything else.” Her father, “Black Jack,” was nicknamed for his tall, dark, handsome looks and “reputation as a seducer of young women.”
Bond, as Jackie, writes of Jackie’s overwhelming love for and marriage to our 35th president John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy—another philanderer: “I had my ways, flimsy as they were, of coping with his scandalous behavior. I pretended not to know the truth and preferred my friends consider me naïve rather than pity me.”
Hurtful overheard comments are disclosed: “Jack did for sex what Eisenhower accomplished for golf.” The reader is treated to a keyhole view into this intensely brilliant and complicated man: “Kennedy is the kind of guy who runs through fires holding a full can of gasoline.”
As you are taken through the death of Jackie and JFK’s infant son, Patrick, their joy of raising Caroline and John Jr., JFK’s Bay of Pigs disaster and his despair over that, and the tragic Texas assasination, you will forget it’s not Jackie speaking. “In a movement of matchless grace so characteristic of Jack, he raised his right hand as if to straighten his unruly hair. His hand fell limply to his side. He had been aiming for the crown of his head, but it was no longer there.” While Jackie cradled Jack in her arms, trying to shield the horror of his wound from the world’s eyes, her signature white gloves turned crimson—a stain that would forever haunt the American psyche.
Jackie’s four-year clandestine romance with Robert Kennedy, after JFK’s death, is revealed from its inception: “We began to make love. He looked like Jack, he smelled like Jack, he made love like Jack. For one brief, shining moment I had Jack back again.”
Her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, was one of the wealthiest men of all time but despite accusations that she was a gold digger, that was not why she married him. “Ari was absolutely the man I needed at this lowest point of my life. He made me feel safe.”
Writer Bond received a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University and went on to graduate from the Freudian Society post-doctoral program. She was a practicing psychoanalyst for 37 years here in NYC and she is now author of 19 books.
Bond is currently working on her next book, a biography of Michelle Obama.
Dorri Olds is a freelance writer, social media consultant and web designer.
