Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story

by C. David Heymann

From the New York Times bestselling author of American Legacy , RFK , and A Woman Named Jackie , an in-depth look at the much talked-about -- but never fully revealed -- relationship between Jackie Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Few writers have immersed themselves in the world of the Kennedys as completely or successfully as C. David Heymann, whose biographies of Jackie, Robert, John F. Kennedy Jr., and Caroline together have sold millions of copies and have shed light on the private lives of the most prominent members of this iconic American family. Now he draws on more than two decades' worth of personal interviews, as well as previously unavailable reports and briefs from the Secret Service and the FBI, to create a complete picture of the complex relationship that existed between two of the most heralded figures of the twentieth century. Americans have long been fascinated by the rumored love affair between Jackie Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. With Bobby and Jackie they will finally get more than a glimpse of their emotional and romantic connection. An open secret for decades among family insiders, their affair began as a result of their shared grief over the assassination of the president in 1963 and lasted until Bobby began his run for the Demo-cratic presidential nomination in 1968. Readers will gain behind-closed-doors access to Bobby and Jackie's liaison, from late-night trysts at Jackie's Fifth Avenue apartment to fervent embraces at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach. They will also learn more about the deep friendship that grew out of the couple's shared tragedies, their family loyalty, and their overflowing ambition. It was "perhaps the most normal relationship either one ever had," Truman Capote observed. "In retrospect, it seems hard to believe that it happened, but it did." Poignant, illuminating, and enormously entertaining, Bobby and Jackie is a glorious account of a legendary romance.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Politics, Biography Memoir, Historical, American History

226 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

C. David Heymann is the internationally known author of such New York Times bestselling books as The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club; RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy; Poor Little Rich Girl: The Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton; and A Woman Named Jackie: An Intimate Biography of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Three of his works have been made into award-winning NBC-TV miniseries. A three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, he lives and works in Manhattan.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bobby and Jackie should not be considered Nonfiction, because its not.

Its fan fiction.

C.David Heymann's books are not known for being fact based. Basically he makes shit up. As long as you go into this or any of his books knowing that then you can just sit back and enjoy them.

The premise of this book is that in the aftermath of JFK's assassination his widow Jackie and his brother Bobby started a years long Grand love affair. The author goes as far as saying they were the loves of each others lives. Now I'm not saying they didn't maybe, possibly sleep together in order to deal with their grief...

But love affair?

Nah, homie.

I enjoyed this book for what it was but I was a little annoyed by the authors obvious disdain for Jackie Kennedy. If you're going to write a book about someone I don't need to know how you feel about that person.

Unless you're writing about Beyonce, then I need to know you love her more than life.

No rec. Unless you're obsessed with the Kennedy's this book really isn't your jam.

Around The Year in 52 Books: A book with A,T,& Y in the title.

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doesn't everyone need to read a pure guilty pleasure once in a while? From the resounding silence, I would guess that the answer is no, and it's just me who sees books like this on the library shelf, looks around, plucks it off, hides it under a pile of more "worthy" books and scurries to the check-out desk praying that the librarian doesn't give me a look of "have you lost your mind" while stamping the due date in the back. What can I say? I'm shallow. On the negative side, much of this ground has been plowed before--some of it repeatedly. On the positive side, there were a number of rather famous people quoted who talked as if the affair between Jackie Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy was not a big secret. According to the author, the two Kennedys turned to each other in their grief after the assassination of John Kennedy and they continued their affair until Bobby made the decision to run for President in 1968. If even half of this is true, it's easy to see why Jackie Kennedy decided to marry Aristotle Onassis less than six months after Bobby's assassination. Also on the positive side, the book is short--about 200 pages. So if you have a beach trip planned and you are interested in the intimate, and I mean, intimate details of the lives of the famous, this might be the book for you. Now I just have to get it back into the library--I'm thinking under both a bulky sweater and the cover of darkness.

[Magdalena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book in the library and decided to borrow it since I have a thing for the Kennedys and most of all RFK. I didn't have high expectations for the book. It looks a bit sordid and it felt a bit sordid to read. Did Jackie and Bobby have an affair? Many people seem to think that they did. It was like a secret everyone knew, but no one spoke about in the public. Nowadays it would be impossible to keep an affair like that a secret, but in the 60s it was probably a lot easier.

In a way a feel sorry for Jackie, I don't think many people knew her. Men wanted to sleep with her, women wanted to be her and she is often portrayed as a greedy ambitious woman, very much so in this book. And perhaps she was precisely so. Who knows?

Perhaps she and Bobby had an affair. Perhaps he was the love of her life. It's easy to write a book about two people that are both dead since they can't confirm or deny anything.

[fleegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fun to read and I’ll tell you why. I’ll give you two big reasons:

1. It’s one of the few Kennedy bios that isn’t the size of a door stop. It’s a quick read and informative and you don’t often get such a thing with a Kennedy book.

2. It’s dishy.

My God, the dish. Look, there are many of pages where he quotes Truman Capote, okay? This is some juicy gossip here, folks. And? Heymann presents it in such a way that it’s not shameful or trashy. In fact, you’re almost glad that Jackie and Bobby were able to have each other to cope with the loss of JFK.

Another plus? Heymann doesn’t walk you through a bunch of stuff you and everyone else on the planet Earth already knows. There’s no, “Jackie was born in…” blah blah blah early history cakes, nay. In fact, the affair supposedly didn’t start until after JFK was killed. So it’s not a bunch of rehashing.

I’m not saying it’s highbrow or anything. But it was compelling and dishy and a quick read. I’d recommend it to people who love to read about the Kennedys (any Kennedys) as well as people who’ve never read a Kennedy (any Kennedy) bio. I’m not saying it wouldn’t help to have an idea of the players and in-laws and other hangers-on, but everyone is pretty much explained anyway.

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I had read reviews for this book before picking this up I would probably have returned to the library without reading it. I always take biographies about a famous person by someone else with a grain of salt but this felt a lot like a very long article in a gossip magazine. readable and definitely had my curiosity a few times. But I questioned the truthfullness quite a lot.

[Heather V ~The Other Heather~ · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Just stay there until I can ditch the ol' ball and chain, okay?"



I'd read all of the criticism about this book before opening it. I still wanted to be scandalized, if that's even possible in 2016. I'd counted on it to be, if nothing else, a salacious, hip-deep wade through some glorious Cape Cod trash.


There's some of that. More if you care about everyone else Jackie and RFK were shagging aside from each other. (And that's assuming you believe they were ever a "thing." Anyone who could've corroborated much in this book is long dead.)


But, really, aside from a few moments of "HOLY HELL THEY WERE DOING IT *WHERE*???" there is, of course, not much of substance in these pages. I'd buy the idea that a liaison between Bobby and his sister-in-law plausibly happened - I mean, both had raging libidos, and they both lived through a tragedy through which I think only they could help each other, so the groundwork was certainly there - but if you're going to take liberties as Heymann has done here (seriously, how would anyone have heard the things these two whispered to each other during their trysts? Obviously there's plenty of dramatic license being taken) then the least we should get is a full-on, balls to the wall, thoroughly filthy if totally made up account of their affair. Throwing out such a tantalizing hypothesis and then giving us little more than "Bobby looked on, red-faced, while she was straightening her skirt as the Secret Service agent entered the room" stuff is just mean. Sure, we know what they were supposedly doing before the door opened. But damnit, if you're going to write Camelot fanfic, GIVE US THE NC-17 VERSION FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.


This could've been the best key party EVER, Heymann.



I'm not sure I can get behind the image of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy spending hours clipping newspapers and scrapbooking everything she could find about Bobby, though. Really? A leather-bound, monogrammed scrapbook, like her own private political Tiger Beat magazine? Did they have glue sticks in the '60s?


Also: see my update about the quotation from Jackie, wishing Bobby were an amoeba, "so you could multiply and there would be two or more of you." Expect that level of hard-hitting journalism and Pulitzer-worthy wordsmithing here, folks.




Even more daunting: As soon as Bobby's presidential ambitions kicked into high gear Heymann says their torrid affair came to an end. But the book still drags us through another 75-ish pages! I didn't care about Aristotle Onassis and his yachts. Nor did I care about RFK's favourite side piece, the one good ol' Teddy left to drown in his car. (That sounded heartless. I just mean I didn't pick up this book to read about the bazillion other lovers these two took on. What's bigger than a bazillion? A gazillion? Maybe that's more accurate, if you go by things Heymann claims Truman Capote said.)


If, however, you're looking for a decent read about how terrible a mother Ethel was to her litter of Kennedy offspring, not to mention her subpar housekeeping skills, this book has a few gems for you. If I'd been Bobby I probably would have shacked up with literally anyone else in order to escape that shitshow of a home life. Damn.


All in all? Eh. The book has its moments. It's more (hypothetical, unsubstantiated, awkwardly written) romance than lurid sex, though, and I felt like I was owed more sex. As one does. Your mileage may vary.

___

originally reviewed in 2016 - updated in 2022 to add this interesting development...

I was just perusing the description of another Heymann book when I noticed several reviews linking to the same Newsweek article, written in 2014 after Heymann's death. Curious, I clicked. Hot damn! Check it out!

A small sample:

Two years later, in Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, Heymann described a Susan Sklover who worked as a White House masseuse while JFK was president, a job title that was a cover for her real job: prostitute. Heymann wrote that Sklover quit after six weeks and that Pierre Salinger, JFK's press secretary, sent her on her way with a $5,000 check—which would have created a paper trail—and an ominous warning to keep quiet. Heymann also describes President Kennedy's evaluation of Sklover's technique—"ordinary lover"—without any indication of how Heymann could have known this.

Heymann wrote that Sklover's name was kept out of Secret Service logbooks, a variation of an assertion in his other books to explain his reliance on people for whom no records exist.

Brown University, in an email, said it has no record of any student named Susan Sklover.

An exhaustive search of public records turned up two women named Susan Sklover, who are aware of each other, but know no one else with that name. Both said they never spoke to Heymann or any researcher. Neither attended Brown, knew JFK Jr. or worked at the White House. The women were born in 1954 and 1960, which meant they were both children during the Kennedy administration.

Heymann's Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, which Bestler also edited, has many anecdotes that are incredible but hardly credible. The astounding claim, central to that book, is that Bobby and Jackie were in love and became lovers soon after JFK was assassinated. Another intriguing bit of pillow talk was that Bobby Kennedy also had an affair with Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, who boasted several times that he was "the sexiest man alive."

Who told Heymann this? He said in the book that his source was journalist Jack Newfield, who died in 2004. Yet back in 1994, when Heymann first made those claim in his revised A Woman Named Jackie, Newfield wrote a column in the New York Post denouncing Heymann for "libeling the dead" with this claim. Whether Heymann was getting revenge on the late journalist or simply could not keep his stories straight is not clear.

Heymann also wrote in that book about a time Bobby Kennedy abandoned a picnic in Virginia and hopped onto a motorcycle with a woman; Heymann says the two were soon observed, "copulating in public." Heymann attributed this debauched tidbit to a "McLean, Virginia, police report…filed on May 25, 1965, signed by Patrol Officer Charles Duffy," who chased after but did not catch the freshman United States Senator from New York as he ran off buck-naked.

There are a few problems with that fantastic tale. Among them: There is no McLean Police Department. The Fairfax County Police, which patrols the area Heymann described, stated in an email that it has no record of an officer named Charles Duffy ever serving on its force. The department also asked 10 officers from that era if they remembered a Charles Duffy. None did. The department also checked its numbered police reports from 1965 and found no such report by any officer.

That is just a fraction of what Newsweek's research turned up. My original review had the right idea: treat this as Camelot fanfic and don't let it alter your perception of the people you're reading about, because it's very likely not grounded in reality at all.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Like most Americans, I am fascinated by the highly dysfunctional Kennedy family, in particular Jackie who basically created the idea of Camelot. She took a mediocre President and a crap husband and turned him into a legend. Talk about a spin job! Anyway, there was some new information in this book. Granted, there are probably thousands of books written about the Kennedys, of which I have read maybe 2 or 3, but I did learn a few new facts. I did not know the older Kennedys were pro-Hitler nor was I aware that Jackie had extramarital affairs as well (though they seemed to be a retaliation more than anything else). But overall, this was a very slow read for me. Given the subject matter and the short length of the book, that was a disappointment. The book was loaded with commentary from "insiders" but all the commentary basically said the same thing "Bobby and Jackie were close." Yeah, I got that. Although I did find Oleg Cassini's statement that Ethel was "the worst mother in the world" interesting. (Yikes!) Anyway, a finely written book but overall a little drier than I expected it to be.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was like a novel length National Enquirer...interesting.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this isn't exactly National Book Award material, but it does make for some interesting afternoon reading for someone who doesn't read romance novels! I have an obsession with the Kennedy Clan (most specifically JFK and Jackie) and I have always been a little fascinated by the rumors of an affair between Jackie and Bobby after JFK was assassinated. I don't think this book necessarily proves it--and he was still a total cad like his brother Jack, but there is part of me that is happy that, if the story is true, she found true love with someone in her lifetime. Total fluff, but sometimes that's what gets ya by.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kennedys have been a guilty pleasure of mine since I was 13. I've read so many books that most are just a rehash of what I already know. This one was filled with a lot of info I did not know probably because I never read about Jackie and Bobby other than just their relationship as in laws. This was well written and very interesting. I really like that it wasn't phone book size like most historical non fiction!

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

First things first: I do believe Bobby and Jackie Kennedy had a romantic relationship, although this conviction has nothing to do with Heymann’s “biography.” Note that I wrote romantic; whether it was sexual or not is irrelevant.

Having researched this book before buying it, I learned of Heymann’s reputation for sensationalism and fabrications. But I was so eager to read about Bobby and Jackie’s relationship that I thought there would be something redeemable about him. Mea culpa.

I spotted the first mistake right in chapter 1 when he writes that in the moment of the assassination, “Jackie had clambered onto the trunk of the vehicle in what appeared to be an attempted escape,” but by all accounts (including that of Clint Hill, the First Lady’s Secret Service agent who climbed onto the car after the shots were fired), Mrs. Kennedy was trying to collect the pieces of her husband’s head in a futile attempt to put them back where they belonged. It may have been an oversight on Heymann’s part, or an attempt to portray Jacqueline Kennedy as a coward.



If you’re trying to escape from danger, you wouldn’t expose yourself like this. You would hide in the car, not climb outside while it’s gaining speed and there might still be more shots coming.

Speaking of which, he goes out of his way to portray Mrs. Kennedy in the worst possible light. If you only read this book about her, you’ll think she was just a gold digger, a snob, frivolous, and worst of all, physically abusive, slapping her daughter over a minor incident to make her resemble Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. That is not to say Jacqueline Kennedy didn’t have flaws, but it’s the duty of a biographer to paint the complete picture, not to serve your agenda. True, Jackie loved luxury, and one of the reasons she married Aristotle Onassis was because of the security his money could provide to her children and herself. She was fluent in several languages, had a degree in French literature, was a voracious reader, genuinely loved art, and had a career as a book editor from 1975 until her last days in 1994. Being a good mother was of the utmost importance for her. She said:

If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.

Then there’s the endless droning about the Kennedy men’s promiscuity. There’s no denying that fact, but Heymann goes as far as stating that Pierre Salinger hired a physical therapist for President Kennedy named Susan Sklover. The real reason she had been employed, she claims, was to service him sexually. Conveniently, “her name was kept out of the Secret Service logbooks” and she quit after six weeks with an ominous warning from Salinger.

Here’s the thing: this Susan Sklover didn’t exist. In a Newsweek article by David Cay Johnston titled “C. David Heymann’s Lies About JFK and Jackie, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor,” he writes:

Heymann invented so many people and events for his books that he wasn’t able to keep them straight. In American Legacy he wrote of “Susan Sklover, a graduate student at Brown during JFK Jr.’s years at the university”—1979 to 1983— who talked about the women JFK Jr. supposedly dated while he was there.

Two years later, in Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, Heymann described a Susan Sklover who worked as a White House masseuse while JFK was president, a job title that was a cover for her real job: prostitute. Heymann wrote that Sklover quit after six weeks and that Pierre Salinger, JFK’s press secretary, sent her on her way with a $5,000 check—which would have created a paper trail—and an ominous warning to keep quiet. Heymann also describes President Kennedy’s evaluation of Sklover’s technique—“ordinary lover”—without any indication of how Heymann could have known this.

Heymann wrote that Sklover’s name was kept out of Secret Service logbooks, a variation of an assertion in his other books to explain his reliance on people for whom no records exist.

Brown University, in an email, said it has no record of any student named Susan Sklover.

An exhaustive search of public records turned up two women named Susan Sklover, who are aware of each other, but know no one else with that name. Both said they never spoke to Heymann or any researcher. Neither attended Brown, knew JFK Jr. or worked at the White House. The women were born in 1954 and 1960, which meant they were both children during the Kennedy administration.

This means Heymann invented her just to prove whatever point he was trying to make. If the author is capable of inventing people in a nonfiction book, it’s to be expected that he would make up anecdotes as well. The juicier the better, as to boost sales. But he has no coherence whatsoever. Early in the book, he establishes that Bobby Kennedy was a discreet man, much more than his brothers. But then he writes a scene where Peter Jay Sharp, the future owner of the Carlyle Hotel, is looking for Ted Kennedy and so walks into his room, only to find Bobby on the floor with a woman. Apparently Ted is in the bathroom doing his own thing. Bobby is said to carry on a conversation “without missing a beat.” Would a man described as discreet hold a conversation with a stranger while having sex? Doubtful.

And why would Bobby and Ted be fucking in the same room? They’re brothers! The Kennedys were a dysfunctional family for sure, but considering their Catholic upbringing, I would think even they would have some boundaries.

However, the most insulting insinuation Heymann makes is that Bobby Kennedy got rid of Marilyn Monroe because she threatened to expose her affair with JFK. Serious biographers consider this claim to be utter nonsense. His supposed motives don’t make sense either way. JFK was notoriously reckless with his exploits, but still, the public didn’t find out about them until after his death, mostly because in those days the press wasn’t as intrusive as it is today. Bobby would have had his hands full of women to kill - the most egregious of them all being Inga Arvad, who was suspected of being a Nazi spy by the FBI. Wouldn’t it make more sense to kill her instead?

The other motive is that Marilyn knew the government’s secrets. JFK was many things, but not stupid. Why would he reveal anything to a casual lover?



Nothing to see here. May 1962.

Regarding Bobby and Jackie’s relationship, Heymann does write about how they always got along, even before JFK’s assassination. They had similar interests that their respective spouses didn’t share, and Jackie sought his advice and support. It was Bobby, not JFK, who was with her at the hospital when she had a stillborn girl, Arabella, in 1956. After her husband’s death, she was also able to comfort him better than his wife Ethel due to their similarities in personality. When Bobby wanted to give up politics, Jackie encouraged him to stay:

Now that Jack’s gone, Caroline and John need you more than ever. Above all, the country needs you. It is time to honor Jack’s memory-not to continue to mourn it. We should both, myself included, be negligent of our responsibilities to that memory if we collapse. Jack would want us both to carry on what he stood for, and died for.

They were protective of one another; when Bobby decided to run for president, Jackie was concerned about his safety. Bobby despised Onassis and didn’t want Jackie to be around him, much less marry him (jealousy probably played a part in this). He also became a surrogate father for Caroline and John Jr., his orphaned niece and nephew. So it’s not far-fetched to imagine that as he replaced JFK as a father, so too did he replace him as a husband.



They couldn’t have done it without each other. Arlington National Cemetery, November 1963.

There are reliable sources that provide insight into their relationship but I guess not enough to fill a whole book, therefore Heymann decided to create them. There was no need: what we do have is much more emotive. Just take this quote from Fred Papert, who worked with Jackie to save Grand Central Station:

One of the things she used to say about her husband was that he was really most interested in the political process, that he loved the idea of making forces move, pitting one against the other. Bobby was the opposite, without patience with that stuff. He was the one that she said she would put her hand in the fire for. And she really didn’t care about this larger political world of ins and outs. Her political sensibilities became more like Bobby’s.

Or the eulogy Jackie wrote for Bobby after his assassination in That Shining Hour (1969), a collection of essays and remembrances about him:

We will miss Bobby.
We will miss him when we wish we could give up and we remember how he always came, unasked, at times like that. So, because of him, no one ever gave up.
We will miss him when we see a picture, and he comes to life with his hair blowing and his smile with more love in it than any other smile.
We will miss him on sunny days, with the white seas, the great shaggy dogs, and all the laughing children.
These lines were written about a Greek statue, but they tell how we will feel without Bobby.
“Ahead of us the night gathers, a different night, and Rhodes begins to fall into the unresponding sea from which only memory can rescue it. The clouds hang high over Anatolia. Other islands? Other futures? Not, I think, after one has lived with the Marine Venus. The wound she gives one must carry to the world’s end.”



Jackie at Bobby’s funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City. June 1968.

The whole book is so distasteful that it tarnishes the beauty of Bobby and Jackie’s relationship. Its only worth resides in the few reliable quotes and facts. Other than that, it’s all trash; I’m going to need some time to purge myself from it.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story by C. David Heyman
Having finished And They Called It Camelot the fictional biography of Jackie Kennedy by Stephanie Thornton, I was eager for more. Among the long list in her bibliography this book jumped out. Bobby had eagerly welcomed her into the clan and was at her bedside after her the death of her still born child. He was always there for Jackie. She depended on him both during and after her marriage. Their relationship was close.
Heyman comprised this book after 20 years of interviews and best seller biographies: RFK - A Candid Biography of Bobby Kennedy and A Woman Named Jackie.
After the poignant and fluid fiction, I found it a come down being packed with so many facts and dates and accounts from celebrated politicians and journalists. He begins with detailed coverage of JFK’s assassination.
An “open secret” for decades among family insiders, their affair began as a result of their shared grief over JFK’s assassination in 1963 and lasted until Bobby’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. She was distraught at his funeral and broke down sobbing. He was the real love of her life.
Heymann builds the case for their intense and complex love affair siting example after example from close friends to the door man at Jackie’s building who saw Bobby come late and leave early in the morning several times a week. “Once they both moved to Manhattan, Bobby and Jackie’s relationship intensified.” (p65)
Easter 1964, Bobby, Jackie, Stas and Lee Radziwill (her sister) and Chuck Spalding vacationed at Paul and Bunny Mellon’s estate in Antigua. “It didn’t take much to see that Booby and Jackie were developing something more than friendship. They held hands, touched, whispered took long walks, huddled on the verandah. There was definitely something between them” said Spalding. (p57)
Gore Vidal said “I suspect that the one person Jackie ever loved…..was Bobby Kennedy. There was always something oddly intimate when she mentioned him to me.”(p60)
What shocked this reader was that Booby had affairs throughout his marriage He was selective and they were long lasting. He was discreet unlike his older brother Jack’s dalliances with bimbos and White House pool orgies. The brothers even kept a suite at the Carlyle Hotel for their escapades.
Another surprise was Bobby’s intensity and reckless nature. He refused Secret Service security while running for the nomination. Jackie had a foreboding about it, not wanting him to run but supporting his decision. She adored him and his idealism and he trusted her judgement.
At one point Bobby seemed to love both Ethel and Jackie in different ways. He became more of a father to Caroline and John than to his brood of ten at Hickory Hill. They could never marry. For all her breeding and elegance she comes across in this book as high maintenance preferring affluent older men. She was used to a life of luxury.
So the author unearths the frailties of these two legends along with unfolding evidence of their great love known only to those who knew them.

[Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had this on my book shelf forever and figured there’s no time like the present to pick it up and dive into it.

I wasn’t born yet during the time of President Kennedy’s occupation of the White House nor during his assignation. I only have knowledge from what I learned during high school. Trust me, Jacqueline Kennedy’s long list of lovers and/or affairs wasn’t something taught in any classroom!

I found this book to be very interesting. I had no idea that Jackie was so in love with her husband’s brother Robert F. Kennedy. The affair lasted from just after JFK’s assignation until shortly before Robert’s death. During the affair, Bobby’s wife, Ethel, continued to “look the other way”. Apparently the Kennedy men were notorious for their many affairs and the wives chose to not confront them.

As for Jackie, not only did I learn all about her various lovers, boyfriends, etc., I learned she was spoiled, demanding and would throw a fit if she didn’t get her way. Her shopping expeditions were crazy! All she wanted was money and money and had no qualms on using her sexuality to obtain money and the power that comes with it.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

F.Scott Fitzgerald, in one of his novels, made the comment "Let me tell you about the rich. They are different from you and me". This quote can be very appropriately applied to C. David Heymann's shocking and mesmerizing account of the relationship(s) of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Bobby Kennedy. Contrary to what the country was led to believe, these larger than life figures led two very different lives-- one that was public, and another that was private. The private lives of these individuals, and others close to them, is a story of adultery, promiscuity, and greed. Meticulously researched, this story with all its juicy details, avoids being trashy because of the irrefutable documented research, quotes from named sources, as well as from recently released government doucuments. Despite the events summarized in this book, Mr. Heymann does not detract from the good works accomplished by these individuals. If you are easily shocked, this book is not for you. But it is a very interesting and well written read.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I see that my two stars are somewhat below the average rating that GR reviewers have given this book. Well, I thought it was o.k. Having read my fair quota on the Kennedy clan, I found much of this to be going over old ground. C. David Heymann is a long time watcher of this family, having written a few books already on Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, her children, and RFK.
'Bobby and Jackie-A Love Story' was published in 2009. If you like reading the inside gossip of the rich and famous with large helpings of salacious revelations, then this could well be a four star read.
There was the odd snippet that was new to me. For example, a lunch meeting between RFK and Florida senator George Smathers in 1966. Smathers asked Bobby why he'd aborted his personal investigation into his brother's assassination. "Because every time I pump the FBI or CIA for information," RFK responded, "I end up with a death threat in the mail. So does Teddy."

[Valerie · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I have read in a while. The title indicates some love story, but what was actually written is a recounting of someone jumping into someone's bed. I started to lose track of who was sleeping with whom, as it seems like every page was talking about a new person jumping into the sack. I felt like I was reading an excerpt out of the Enquirer. The tawdry reports seemed obsessive. Considering that by googling I find this author has been known to misquote his interviewees, and actually make up lies, I am not sure I can believe even what was written. The only redeeming factor to this book is that it was short. If I had not had to read if for a book club, I would have put it down after the second chapter.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 2 out of 5]

When her husband, John F. Kennedy, was killed, Jackie took comfort from his brother, Bobby.

The book is basically filled with stories of their indiscretions. While Bobby continues to make lots of babies with his wife Ethel, when he too is killed, it is too much for Jackie to handle. She marries Ari Onassis and spends a ton of his money.

He dies, and she moves back to her Fifth Avenue opulent apartment.

This is a quick read filled with a lot of details about the love life of Jackie.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very disappointing. Reviewed as the great love story of both of their lives, I expected a romantic tale. Instead, it was a laundry list of who slept with who.

[KOMET · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prior to reading Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, I had a dim awareness of a close relationship that had developed between Bobby Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Jacqueline's husband (and Bobby's brother, whom he admired, respected and idolized), President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In many of the books I have read about the Kennedys over the past 4 decades, this unique relationship between both people is usually glossed over - if mentioned at all.

When I first learned of this relationship, I was inclined to discount it ever having existed. The notion of an intimate relationship between Bobby and Jacqueline Kennedy struck me as scurrilous gossip spread by Kennedy haters when I first heard about it. But when this relationship was touched upon in some detail from another Kennedy book I had read a few years ago, I simply thought that, because of the deep trauma Bobby and Jacqueline Kennedy experienced over President Kennedy's assassination, there was a brief intimate relationship that developed between them and lasted through 1964. For by year's end, Bobby Kennedy had resigned from being Attorney General in Lyndon Johnson's Administration, run for a U.S. Senate seat in New York (and won), while Jacqueline moved out of the White House into a house in Georgetown (where she lived with her children for several months), and went on to settle in New York City (where she was afforded more privacy and personal freedom than was the case in Washington).

But as this book points out in considerable detail - through interviews the author had with many people who knew Bobby and Jacqueline Kennedy, in addition to numerous eyewitness accounts from several of Bobby and Jackie's closest friends, associates, and acquaintances - there was an intimate relationship that was an open secret up to the time of Bobby Kennedy's assassination in June 1968.

What also became clear to me from reading this book is that, in many respects, Bobby and Jacqueline Kennedy were kindred spirits. Both were sensitive people who deeply valued, loved, and respected one another. They also encouraged and supported each other as each went about reconstructing their lives after November 22, 1963. Ethel - Bobby's wife - knew of this relationship and largely distanced herself from it. She loved him totally in spite of his womanizing (which wasn't quite as numerous as was the case with his brothers) and - both being Catholic, there was no question of divorce. This was similar to the tolerance Jacqueline Kennedy herself developed as a way of coping with JFK's numerous affairs throughout their marriage.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, which showed how 60 years ago, the private lives of public figures in the U.S. were largely allowed to remain private and unreported by the news media of that era. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in personal interest stories involving famous historical personages.

[Immigration Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sure, this book is grounded in gossip. But that gossip is based on fact, and the book made it to print. I have not been able to find any record of a successful libel suit in court against the publisher or the author. Assuming even just a third of the book is true, my question is simple:

"Can any guy named Kennedy, from the clan of Old Joe, the alleged bootlegger, keep it in their pants?"

For the love of God, gentlemen, put those things back in your trousers.

[Abbi Debelack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a quick and easy read! Well written, but all of the characters were so sleazy, it made it difficult to enjoy reading the book in my opinion.

[Lisa Debelack · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow! They were a raunchy group. This book really unravels their crafted “Camelot” persona …

[L'aura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read about this book and its "revelations" when it came out; it was an article on Italian Vanity Fair. Since then, the idea of "Bobby and Jackie" has stayed in the back of my head even if I forgot about the book and the article altogether.
It wasn't until I watched "The Kennedys" that the idea of them dawned to me again. I realized that it felt odd to me that doubts could arise about Robert and Jacqueline Kennedy's mutual feelings, even though no actual "literature" on the pair was ever produced.
Well, I guess Heymann obliged. Before I read this book, I checked who he was to make sure he wasn't some social-climbing former butler seeking to land on some reality show.
And here's my two cents: if you're looking for the smoking gun, ladies and gents, you won't find it. Not in this book. Maybe RFK and his brother's widow had an affair, an "open secret" of an affair--who knows? Some think they did, some, in this book, say they did (and their "revelations" may sound cheesy, more often than not). But this is not the kind of stuff you miraculously find out about after just sixty years or so. What's sixty years in history? Merely the day before yesterday. You don't uncover a secret, not even an "open" one, in so little time.
But if you're looking for hints and suggestions of a love story, one that isn't necessarily sexual and maybe not even 100% romantic, there you have them. Truman Capote's words (which I won't quote because I'm too lazy) make so much sense. Well, actually, Capote also mentions sex. But the most striking, if discrete, words are no less than Jackie's. I won't quote her either, I'd feel like I'm intruding. Which I definitely did.

[RNOCEAN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pulitzer-nominated biographer Heymann delivers a gawk-worthy beach read with this fascinating look at Jackie and the Kennedy clan in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Life for JFK and Jackie was less than perfect; one story finds him cheating on Jackie during their 1953 Acapulco honeymoon, leaving the new Mrs. Kennedy "by herself on the verandah." Still, Jackie's devastation was real; afterward, her love for his brother Bobby was equally genuine. Unable to find peace (her Georgetown home had become a stop for all D.C. tour buses), Bobby gladly volunteered to play surrogate father to her kids; before long, an affair began. According to Truman Capote, it was "perhaps the most normal relationship either one ever had." It was not necessarily simple, however; both saw a number of people while together. Promiscuity aside, the Kennedys were also notoriously "chintzy" in their personal lives-they didn't tip and employed undocumented workers at home- though Jackie fares marginally better. It's anyone's guess how the affair would have ended if Bobby hadn't been killed; just four months later, she married Aristotle Onassis. Heymann's research is top notch, with plentiful attributions, making this train-wreck love story a substantial guilty pleasure and a sizzling reminder of how the rich are different.
*****Rate this a 5/5 as it was read in two sittings! Quite an engaging tale of the Kennedys and loaded with tidbits I never knew before. A very interesting read!

[Yelda Basar Moers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a review of this book in a major magazine and felt compelled to read it. The writer did a good job gathering reporting, but ultimately I felt the book didn't come together because it wasn't really about the love story. There wasn't a narrative that followed the relationship, from its burgeoning moment until its end. It was basically a biography of Jackie and Bobby, run parallel in one book, with occasional highlights of their love affair. But other than telling us that Jackie adored him, or that he would do anything for her, or that they were the love of their lives, we didn't see this love story unfold. The narrative was also rushed, a hodge podge of info smushed together, and didn't really flow cohesively. Maybe if the writer took more time he could have made it into what the title implied. Still, it's a fast read and not a waste of time if you're interested in the topic.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I admit I am part of the problem. I am so enthralled by the illusion of Camelot that I will read most books I can find about the Kennedys. This one however is just as sleazy as you might imagine. Some of the claims were so absurd that I was fact checking while I was reading, and found that many of the stories in this book and the author's other books seem to lack evidence or have been proven out right to be fabrications. I guess that also means that either the author was making a lot of the stuff up, or any evidence has long since been destroyed. I feel like in this book's case it is probably a combination of both. While I do enjoy a realistic picture of a family that has been on a pedestal for so long, books like this are also icky because none of the main players are alive to defend themselves. I have no doubt that the two did have an affair, and in an awful kind of way it makes sense. But I think it's time to let the Kennedys go and let them rest in peace.

[Claudia Mundell · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mother sent this book home with me, and I thought I would read it for her. I pushed it aside for while and finally got to looking at it this week. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down but not because it was a pretty story! I was fascintated with the way the people lived, shocked at the depth of evil behavior. I know the parties were never perfect; I am not into idolatry of the Kennedys. But still the depth of it all, and what was going on in history at that time.

I will think about this book for a while because of the "tragic hero" element of this family. What makes these people live like this? Where did it start? Does good and evil co-exist always and everywhere? Is there no political personality anywhere that can tell the whole truth, live by what he professes, not have skeletons in his closet? Maybe I better not think on this too much after all!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in a day which is unusual for me but I was home sick so that meant I had time on my hands. I found it interesting as I have lived through the time that is covered by this book. It's amazing to me how many affairs these people had and no one knew. By no one I mean me and most of the people in the world. It makes me wonder if these things are still being covered up. I mean how did these people even have time to get anything else done like running for office and running a country. The bad luck or bad karma of the Kennedy family is unbelievable. An interesting point is the lack of security at his request surrounding Bobby Kennedy during his last campaign. It was almost as if he felt he deserved to die.

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story starts with Bobby & Jackie's friendship and rapport (despite Jackie's clashing with the rest of the Kennedy family) and, after the tragedy of JFK's death, becomes a love affair between two people who are destined to be kept apart (after a few years of off-and-on romantic trysts).

The author quotes a lot of sources in his effort to convince us that Bobby and Jackie were in love. I'm sure tabloids quote a lot of sources too, but at least this story is told with relative respect to the subjects. Maybe it's because I'm already a Kennedy sympathizer (though not a -phile), but I feel like Bobby & Jackie come off none the worse for having this story told.

[Regina Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has drawn from a vast archive of material pertaining to Jackie, yet it is the sketchier portrait of Bobby Kennedy that seems the more vibrant. Despite a wealth of documentation and first-person anecdote, a convincing sense of Mrs. Onassis' essence emerges only intermittently from the mists of legend, only to vanish a paragraph or a page later.

Occasional stretching out and redundancy sometimes led me to wonder if perhaps there might be a little less than meets the eye. Still, a fine achievement and an enticing read.