AND THEY CALLED IT CAMELOT chronicles Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’ life from the time she first met John F. Kennedy until she worked at Viking as a book editor. Tackling a larger-than-life person such as Jackie Kennedy is a daunting undertaking, and Stephanie Marie Thornton handles that challenge splendidly.

Thornton’s decision to have Jackie narrate her own story lends an intimate feel to the tale. She captures Jackie’s personality without losing the impartiality that sometimes comes with devoting so much time and effort to the telling of another person’s story. She also manages to detail Jackie’s life without making excuses for her or rationalizing her decisions. Maintaining this type of neutrality strengthens the book immensely.

"AND THEY CALLED IT CAMELOT is a solid addition to the historical fiction genre, providing a fascinating and personal portrait of one of America’s most iconic women."

Viewed through a contemporary lens, Jackie’s relationship decisions and choices are both baffling and troubling, and readers will be asking themselves why she chose the men she did and why she stayed with them. Warned about JFK’s reputation from the beginning by numerous people, including his own brother Bobby, Jackie chose to marry him anyway, hoping that she could temper his wild streak. Within a year, and long before they had children, JFK was already engaging in extramarital affairs. While she was pregnant and miscarried, he was at sea with several women and was unreachable for days after she lost the baby. Those events were followed by an extraordinary number of extramarital dalliances, many of which were known to Jackie. After JFK’s death, she had an uncomfortably close relationship with Bobby and then subsequently married an uncouth and unscrupulous Greek shipping tycoon who treated her poorly.

While romantic relationships were not her strength, Jackie left her mark on the United States in other ways. When the Kennedys moved into the White House in 1961, the mansion had not been renovated since 1901 during Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure, and “its rooms were decorated helter-skelter with several decades of furnishings better suited to a wholesale furniture store in a January clearance.” In an era when televisions were now in everyone’s homes and people were traveling more, Jackie realized that the White House would be playing a more visible role and that it should reflect the importance of its primary residents. With a limited budget, she found creative ways to remodel and ultimately cemented the White House as one of the leading historic homes in the country.

Jackie’s diplomatic trips to France, India, Pakistan and numerous other places helped shape the relationships that the U.S. had with those countries. She was a fashion trendsetter following years of staid First Ladies and taught the country perseverance and how to grieve after JFK’s assassination. And possibly her lasting legacy for their time in office is when she said this in an interview: “There will be great presidents again, but there will never be another Camelot.” To this day, JFK’s presidency is still routinely linked to Camelot.

Towards the end of the book, Thornton sums up Jackie Kennedy appropriately: “I’d been the devoted wife of one of America’s greatest presidents, the cosmopolitan Queen of Camelot in the pillbox hats, the amateur historian who gave the White House its rightful role as America’s historic home. A dignified widow who taught her country how to grieve, the loving sister-in-law of America’s last prince, the willing wife of a Greek shipping tycoon.” AND THEY CALLED IT CAMELOT is a solid addition to the historical fiction genre, providing a fascinating and personal portrait of one of America’s most iconic women.