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For the first time, a respected biographer focuses on the complex relationships among three famous Kennedy wives in a book that is at once absorbing, controversial, and heartbreaking.

Jacqueline Bouvier. Ethel Skakel. Joan Bennett. Three women who married into America's royal family and lived in the glory and glare of politics' highest echelons. The Camelot years taught markedly different life lessons to each of them: Jackie's hopes became reality, but at an unfathomable cost; Ethel's dream to be First Lady died along with her brutally assassinated husband; and Joan's years as a Kennedy were the most confusing of her life. But whether dealing with their husbands' blatant infidelities, smiling on the campaign trail, enhancing the family's legacy, or raising their children, the Kennedy wives did it all with unquestioned grace, style, and dignity.

If ever three women would be changed and challenged by their marriages, they would be Jacqueline Bouvier, Ethel Skakel and Joan Bennett. None of them, as radiant brides could have been prepared for the fame, tragedies and difficult lives awaiting them, As each struggled in her own way to cope with her husbands' infidelities and scandals, the assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, the complexity of the Marilyn Monroe matter that had so vexed Jackie, and the harsh glare of constant media attention, they would become like sisters, reaching out to one another for comfort and consolation. But like sisters, they would also compete with one another, argue and become estranged, sometimes for years -- as did Jackie and Ethel over Aristotle Onassis. Now, from J. Randy Taraborrelli, comes a biography that for the first time truly captures their special sisterhood. Jackie, Ethel, Joan carefully separates fact from innuendo and explores the women's complex relationships with one another as well as with the ambitious, raucous and powerful Kennedy clan that nearly devoured them. For years we have treated the Kennedy men's unfaithfulness almost as an eccentricity, and in doing so we've overlooked something very important. There were victims involved. After all, these were married men who had wives ... who suffered. J. Randy Taraborrelli now shows us the Kennedy wives' private lives with a wealth of information available to no other biographers. Based on extensive research, including copious interviews with their closest friends, never-before-published oral histories from the JFK and LBJ Libraries, and stunning insights from letters and tapes published here for the first time, Jackie, Ethel, Joan presents a balanced, psychologically astute, affectionate and fascinating portrayal of three extraordinary women ... and shows us their courage in a way that may inspire our own.

Written by J. Randy Taraborrelli - Audio book narrated by Beth Fowler - Abridged Nonfiction - 4 CASSETTES - 6 hours

Publisher, Time Warner Audio Books (February 2000)