Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m reviewing an engaging book by Ann Mah – Jacqueline in Paris. This book is an historical fictional story about the coming-of-age life of Jacqueline Bouvier (not yet Kennedy), and the year she took off before college, spent in post-war Paris.
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Blurb:
“Captivating…Mah channels Kennedy and brings postwar Paris to life with exquisite detail and insight.” — People
From the bestselling author of The Lost Vintage, a rare and dazzling portrait of Jacqueline Bouvier’s college year abroad in postwar Paris, an intimate and electrifying story of love and betrayal, and the coming-of-age of an American icon – before the world knew her as Jackie.
In September 1949 Jacqueline Bouvier arrives in postwar Paris to begin her junior year abroad. She’s twenty years old, socially poised but financially precarious, and all too aware of her mother’s expectations that she make a brilliant match. Before relenting to family pressure, she has one year to herself far away from sleepy Vassar College and the rigid social circles of New York, a year to explore and absorb the luminous beauty of the City of Light. Jacqueline is immediately catapulted into an intoxicating new world of champagne and châteaux, art and avant-garde theater, cafés and jazz clubs. She strikes up a romance with a talented young writer who shares her love of literature and passion for culture – even though her mother would think him most unsuitable.
But beneath the glitter and rush, France is a fragile place still haunted by the Occupation. Jacqueline lives in a rambling apartment with a widowed countess and her daughters, all of whom suffered as part of the French Resistance just a few years before. In the aftermath of World War II, Paris has become a nest of spies, and suspicion, deception, and betrayal lurk around every corner. Jacqueline is stunned to watch the rise of communism – anathema in America, but an active movement in France – never guessing she is witnessing the beginning of the political environment that will shape the rest of her life—and that of her future husband.
Evocative, sensitive, and rich in historic detail, Jacqueline in Paris portrays the origin story of an American icon. Ann Mah brilliantly imagines the intellectual and aesthetic awakening of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and illuminates how France would prove to be her one true love, and one of the greatest influences on her life.
My 5 Star Review:
Jacqueline Bouvier goes to Paris for a year to explore and take art history courses for a year before heading home to college, and to escape her domineering mother before she plots Jackie’s life for her. She is enamored by the City of Lights and quite happy to be staying in a war-torn large apartment with a Countess and her daughters, meeting friends in interesting circles and loving the Parisienne life, despite her realizations of the state of what the Occupation had left Paris in. She befriends many new people, both from her accommodation circles and meets up with some bougie and political people and writers, and ultimately finds a rude awakening as to the political status of France. She learns how the threat of communism is looming large in Paris, and of ‘the resistance’ working in dangerous situations to attempt to thwart the stirrings of communism.
Her innocence or perhaps, ignorance of what the war had left for many European countries is revealed when she takes some weekend jaunts with friends to other countries, such as Germany and Vienna. As she witnesses the destruction of these cities and people and concentration camps, she is stunned to her rude awakenings of war.
Jackie polishes her French in Paris while discovering that even though the war had ended four years prior, Paris was still much in a war-torn state and many people were still struggling just to eat.
Mah’s story-telling is exquisite with her rich descriptions that made me feel as though I was there with Jackie, as an honored invisible guest. This fictionalized, yet historical backdrop of France, its architecture, remnants of war – mixed politics – art history, literature, and high society living among the many who still struggled in Paris, was all encompassed in this grand descript telling by Mah. Perhaps Paris is where Jackie really belonged, studying arts and literature, happy, and without tragedy, where she could be herself and be happy.
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