Podcast Summary: New Books Network Episode: Oline Eaton, "Finding Jackie: The Second Act of America's First Lady" (Diversion Books, 2023) Host: Rebecca Buchanan | Guest: Oline Eaton Date: January 18, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Rebecca Buchanan interviews author and scholar Oline Eaton about her new book, Finding Jackie: The Second Act of America's First Lady. The conversation explores Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s often-overlooked post-White House years, Eaton’s unique archival and narrative approach, the construction and distortion of Jackie’s image in popular culture, and broader themes about women’s biography and historical narrative.

Main Discussion Topics & Insights

1. Origins and Evolution of the Project (02:08–04:43)

• Eaton’s lifelong fascination with Jackie Kennedy began at age 12, intensified by media eulogies after Jackie’s death in 1994.
• The project’s roots: an MA thesis at the University of Chicago, “a middle chapter of a hypothetical biography of Jackie that I figured was…impossible to write” (03:00).
• Years of drafting, culminating with a PhD at King’s College London: “I felt like I wasn’t a good enough writer to write the thing that was in my head… The PhD…was really the thing that got it done.” (03:57).
• The book’s final form largely unchanged since 2016.

2. The Structure and Source Material: Tabloid Magazines (04:43–07:53)

• Unique use of 1960s–70s movie magazines as both structure and source: “Basically fan fiction based on truth, probably is what we should think of.” (05:06)
• These magazines captured melodramatic, sensational portrayals of Jackie—especially her widowhood—that mainstream press suppressed: “In the movie magazines, there are melodramatic portrayals of her grief…digging into those granular issues of widowhood.” (06:15)
• Eaton and her family collected these magazines, finding them to be vivid, underused windows into Jackie’s public and private reinventions.
• The book employs “fake covers throughout for each year to kind of capture the tone of how her life was being portrayed at the time.” (06:47)

3. Focus on Jackie’s Onassis Years & Erasure in Biography (07:53–12:17)

• Mainstream narratives erase or sanitize the Onassis years: “The media collaborated in this rehabilitation where they erase the Onassis years like Soviets banishing dissidents from the historical record.” (09:37)
• Eaton describes being “deeply bored” by eulogies centered on grace and dignity; she was more interested in “this huge thing that no one was talking about” regarding Jackie’s transformative, controversial time in Greece.
• Key question: How does someone “have a life” after such extraordinary trauma? (10:54)

4. Motherhood, Trauma, and Public Scrutiny (12:17–18:10)

• The burden of raising two children in the glare of media and after public tragedy: “How does a mother raise her children without a husband?...How was she living with trauma and also in this incredible public layer that was in and of itself traumatizing?” (13:56)
• Eaton’s research involved painstakingly tracking press coverage to reconstruct the relentless, granular invasion of Jackie’s life.
• Trauma is central, and previous biographies neglected this: “Her trauma is taken very lightly in a lot of the books that are out there.” (17:22)
• Eaton’s biography applies a “trauma-informed” approach.

5. Integrating History: Jackie, Grief, and Social Upheaval (18:10–24:02)

• The book’s structure: Each year’s chapter ends with “November 22,” marking the anniversary of JFK’s assassination: “That intrusion of grief and the intrusion of memory… It shakes you up every year.” (19:33)
• Importance of embedding Jackie’s story in the wider historical context—Vietnam, Watergate, nuclear anxiety: “Men’s lives have meaning and are historically significant, and women’s lives are gossip.” (21:31)
• Eaton fights to frame Jackie’s life as both domestically drama-rich and historically relevant.

6. Paparazzi, Public Fascination, and Media Ethics (25:11–29:03)

• Paparazzi culture, personified by Ron Galella, uniquely impacted Jackie: “He looks like he’s a security detail. He’s that close to her.” (27:03)
• Sensory trauma of media pursuit: “Watching actual videos…you can see the flashbulbs…When we’re thinking about someone who’s traumatized, that’s an important thing to keep in mind.” (26:25, paraphrased)
• Despite occasional strategic engagement, Jackie largely sought privacy and control over her narrative.

7. Fan Fiction, Unauthorized Biographies, and Narrative Control (29:03–34:44)

• Jackie lived with constant rumors, unauthorized biographies, and media invention: “It’s got to be horrendously frustrating to have everyone think you’re this thing…as a human being, of course you want to intervene and explain yourself, because you’re way more complicated than that.” (33:44)
• The JFK Library’s newly opened files shed light on instances when Jackie or her office would intervene or deny rumors, but these were often unsuccessful in stemming speculation.

8. Restoration of Jackie’s Complexity and Research Challenges (37:11–41:25)

• Eaton’s dedication to including Jackie’s own words and conducting original archival research, including tracking down letters and visiting significant places: “Having all these encounters with her words and with letters was just amazing. It was such a privilege.” (40:05)
• Personal connection: Conducting in-person interviews, developing relationships with confidantes and scholars grew her understanding and fueled the writing.
• Archival research complicated by women’s name changes and lack of standardization: “The problem of writing about women is that everyone’s names change and they’ve all got nicknames…” (37:45)

9. Legacy, Critique, and Who Gets to Write Women’s Lives (50:24–55:41)

• Eaton wants the book to provoke further discussion about whose voices narrate women’s lives: “Jackie biography has always been written by white people. I am a white person. There is a tremendously interesting and complicated story to be told about her importance in the black community…” (52:13)
• Criticism of male-dominated, sometimes exploitative film and biography industries: “I absolutely cannot stand the fact that the screenplay was written by Noah Oppenheim, who concealed Matt Lauer’s abuses at NBC News… [I am] frustrated with Pablo Larraín for continually telling the stories of iconic women by screenplays that are written by men.” (51:00)
• The need for critical, diverse, and ethically responsible storytelling about women, and biography’s influence on cultural self-understanding.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On persistent media narratives:
  “The media collaborated in this rehabilitation where they erase the Onassis years like Soviets banishing dissidents from the historical record.”
  — Oline Eaton, (09:37)

• On the complexity of living with trauma:
  “How do you then live after that? …That is so traumatic and so horrifying. How do you do that?”
  — Oline Eaton, (10:54)

• On the gendered framing of biography:
  “Men’s lives have meaning and are historically significant, and women’s lives are gossip. I fought tooth and nail for the book cover…Not women. No, you would not put JFK in men. He would be history.”
  — Oline Eaton, (21:31)

• On Jackie’s agency and public independence:
  “She negotiated a life…these things that the American public or the press might not have completely agreed with. But it worked for her.”
  — Rebecca Buchanan, (35:52)

• On biography and authorship:
  “I don’t have a messiah complex, I have a John the Baptist complex…My work is a stopgap of like trying to maintain information, trying to turn her life into art as well…”
  — Oline Eaton, (50:39)

• On rethinking biographical tradition:
  “We are saturated with [biographical] narratives everywhere. Gossip is biographical narrative.”
  — Oline Eaton, (54:21)

Key Timestamps

• 02:08 — Eaton’s personal fascination and project origins
• 05:00–07:53 — Magazine sources and portrayal of Jackie’s grief
• 08:30–11:59 — Motivation to recover the “Onassis years”
• 13:01–18:10 — Trauma, motherhood, and press scrutiny
• 19:21–24:02 — Integrating personal and political history in narrative
• 25:11–29:03 — Development of paparazzi and exposure
• 30:00–34:44 — Jackie’s efforts at narrative control
• 37:11–41:25 — Research process and archival challenges
• 46:51 — Closing reflections on authorship, voice, and legacy

Episode Tone

The conversation is inquisitive, candid, and passionate, with Oline Eaton’s voice blending scholarly detail, personal investment, and critical engagement. Both host and guest maintain an accessible, conversational style, inviting listeners to view Jackie Kennedy Onassis—and biography as a genre—in new, more complex lights.

Further Information

Book: Finding Jackie: The Second Act of America’s First Lady (Diversion Books, 2023)
Guest’s social media: Oline Eaton is active on Instagram and Twitter.
Call to action: Eaton encourages readers to engage thoughtfully with the book and its take on women’s lives, biography, and history.