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Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
Maybe someday
25
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
32/100Critics
17/100Scholars
Author:
Elizabeth Beller
Publisher:
Gallery Books
Date:
May 21, 2024
The life and legacy of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, wife of John F. Kennedy Jr., are reexamined in this biography.
What The Reviewers Say
Why is this exercise in heroine worship emerging a full quarter-century after her death? Beller argues that Bessette-Kennedy’s legacy until now has been shaped by men.
Beller stumbled into the classic rookie mistake: She fell in love with her subject and so could never see her objectively. The result is an effusive, almost worshipful portrait of a modern-day princess, stripped of agency or nuance.
Truth is not the point. The point was her image, consumed by a public who veered wildly from adoration to enmity, and created by a media that almost always opted for the latter.
A sympathetic biography.
