Monday, September 21, 2026

5:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Who was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis underneath the woman we think we see? Irreverent and artistic, Jackie projected myriad selves but was, at her core, a deeply private person, with a nuanced, formidable intellect. Fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, she kept in shape on a trampoline, bit her nails, and read everything. Homer, Chekhov, James Baldwin, the works of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, the novels of Isak Dinesen. A consummate observer, she was a rigorous master at wielding influence behind the scenes. Though she reckoned with the decades-long challenge of living in the glare of the public eye, Jackie described herself as “an outsider…a very hard thing to be in American life.” In this conversation, award-winning author Dawn Tripp will share highlights culled from her ten years of research that breathe new life into the story of a complex woman who shaped American history, and forged her own myth even as she lived it.