The Bouvier sisters' special summer

Jackie & Lee - a starting place

At the end of last month I asked subscribers which sisters they’d like to know more about: the Boleyns, the Bouviers, or the Windsors. Bizarrely the results were an exact three-way tie. I figured that left the choice up to me, and thought I’d plump for the Bouviers because I’d just really enjoyed reading Jackie, a novel, by Dawn Tripp (where I’d found out that Lee Radziwill was in a relationship with Onassis before Jackie was) and so the sisters were in my head anyway.

But I’ve been finding it tough going. There’s a mass of books about Jackie, unsurprisingly, and it takes time even to work out which are the most reliable sources. The story of the Bouvier sisters is certainly complex - full of jealousy and competition - and the book I went to first, mainly drawn to its title The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters, on the very first page offers this quote. It’s from Jackie’s thirty-eight page Will, read to the family after her death on May 19, 1994.

I have made no provision in this my Will for my sister, Lee B. Radziwill, for whom I have great affection, because I have already done so in my lifetime. I do wish, however, to remember her children, and thus I direct my Executors to set aside the amount of five hundred thousand dollars for each child surviving me of my sister…

My initial reaction to this was surprise. I’d just finished Tripp’s novel, and Lee had really faded out of Jackie’s life story. There’s no mention of Lee at the end (and yes, it’s fiction, but thoroughly researched, I am sure) and yet The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters opens with Lee weeping at her sister’s deathbed, and devastated to hear of this apparent repudiation from her only sibling. What this book does have going for it, is that authors Sam Kushner and Nancy Schoenberger were able to interview Lee in person. What it lacks, is proper academic references - so it’s full of quotes but not the clearest details of who said what and when. So frustrating.

It felt like a setback, but what I was quickly sure of, was that the Bouvier sisters’ relationship won’t fit into one quick blog post. I also knew that although this was a turbulent relationship, the sisters were close at times. Even if Jackie really did clock her sister on the head with a croquet mallet once upon a day, and even if Lee really did push her older sister down a flight of stairs (yes really) they traveled to Europe together when Jackie was 21 and Lee, 17, and years later, in 1974, Lee published the 1951 travel diary they wrote for their mother, One Special Summer. In 1974 Lee wrote:

We did this book in a state of joy and laughter, which was our mood throughout the trip. We split the fun: Jackie did the drawings, the poetry and the parts on Rome and Spain. I described most of our adventures - on the Queen Elizabeth, in London, Paris, Venice, Rome and Florence…And so here it is, just as we did it in 1951, with not a word or a pen stroke changed.¹

It’s a short read, and not terribly insightful - they were 21 and 17 after all - but given what seems like quite a tortured sister relationship over the years, there’s something poignant about the whole book, and the fact that they made it at all. The illustrations have charm, and there’s an innocence about it that feels weird to read in light of all that was ahead of them, especially for Jackie. Here are some of my favorite pages:

So where to next with the Bouvier sisters?

I have America’s Queen, the Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, by Sarah Bradford on my desk. I watched this little interview between Lee and Sofia Coppola yesterday (highlight for me is Lee’s answer when asked if she’s prepared to talk about Aristotle Onassis). I just picked up a copy of The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin, a historical fiction novelist I enjoy reading, as well as Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer, to find out more about Lee confiding in Truman Capote that she was ‘wildly jealous of Jackie’². I’m also thinking it might be good fun to watch Feud: Capote v the Swans, based on the book, and starring Calista Flockhart as Lee, as well as Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, one of the Cushing Sisters (yes! another set of sisters to add to the list!)

But if that’s all too much about Lee, there’s always plenty to read about Jackie. There’s the Maria Callas/Onassis/Jackie rabbit hole just waiting for someone to fall down, and it’s pretty well represented in fiction. I’ve mentioned Dawn Tripp’s new book already, but Jackie and Maria by Gill Paul and Diva by Daisy Goodwin have both caught my eye.

So there will be more on Jackie and Lee one day, maybe soon, maybe not. In the meantime, I’m left thinking about this description of Lee from the inside cover of Capote’s Women, which might just sum up the whole problem between them, at least as far as Lee was concerned:

1. One Special Summer, Jacqueline and Lee Bouvier, Rizzoli, 2005

2. Capote’s Women, Laurence Leamer, Penguin Random House, 2021