A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer by Nina Burleigh Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer
Book Review: Unsatisfying biography, fascinating woman
Summary: 3 Stars
This book doesn't answer some intriguing questions: Who killed Mary Meyer? What was the motive? What did Mary Meyer feel about her lover, John Kennedy, and his assassination? The author does take the subject seriously and gives Mary Meyer the respect she deserves. However, this book creates more questions than answers.Book Review: Dull, pedantic and filled with unnecessary detail
Summary: 1 Stars
It was difficult to plow through this dull and fact-filled account of Mary Meyer's life. I had hoped for more depth about the woman and her soul, her ideas, her feelings. I realize from reading this book that she remained detached and aloof so maybe no one really knew her thoughts and feelings. If her diaries/journal were published, perhaps we'd see and come to know the real Mary. I believe, from small glimpses, she was a woman of substance but Nina Burleigh should stick to writing text books geared to insomniacs.Book Review: A remarkable life
Summary: 4 Stars
Wrap up high-society of the '20s and '30s with the Kennedy years, the racial tensions of the early `60s, and a little flavor of the art world, and then sprinkle in a few conspiracy theories, the CIA, and a murder, put it all against a paranoiac backdrop of the cold war atmosphere, and then finally, for good measure, give it a dash of Timothy Leary and the drug culture (oh, and presidential sex too) - and you've got ... well, the potential for quite a mess. You also have the framework of the Mary Meyer story, and in less capable hands it could easily have taken on the tone of a melodramatic soap opera. But if there is one thing that Burleigh can be complimented on, it is her evenhandedness in discovering and examining the actual facts. Exhaustively researched (don't skip the footnotes on this one, they're fascinating in themselves) and carefully crafted, Burleigh gives a well balanced account of a life during turbulent, if not down right chaotic, times. Readers might be disappointed that there is no tidy conclusion, but, then, that's real life. And what Burleigh delivers is the quite remarkable story of one woman who emerges from the label of housewife and hostess to stake out an identity of her own.
Book Review: Compelling subject; ineptly handled
Summary: 2 Stars
Ms. Burleigh's title says a little less that what is revealed in the body of the book. Her style is flat and reportorial, and on several occasions she repeats information for no apparent reason. I was very disappointed. I would have liked for her to have followed her leads and to have come to some kind of meaningful conclusion.Book Review: A vivid portrayal of a fascinating woman and her times.
Summary: 4 Stars
For anyone with an interest in the world of Washington politics and the East Coast intelligentsia "ruling class" of the 1950s and 1960s, this vivid portrait of Mary Pinchot Myer and her times will be a rewarding read. Mary's struggle and efforts to find herself, ultimately by attemptingto break out of her cocooned and narrow world via art, drugs and sex, is a great subject. Her life represents the first awakenings to the oppression of husband-centered lives that similar privileged white women of the time were beginning to experience. Even though her struggle might have been flawed and incomplete, it was real. Her unique relationship to influential people in both politics and art allows the author to illuminate larger political issues through her. What was most revealing to me was the sense of an intertwined, almost incestuous group of privileged families who literally controlled not only Washington politics but Washington received wisdom -- in the form of journalism. The book provides insight into the web of connections that existed between the CIA, politicians, artists and journalists, and gave me a fresh perspective on how the elite controls this country -- both then and undoubtedly now. I say now, especially considering the apparently continuing efforts to muzzle Mary Myer even in death (by destroying her diary, etc.) as if aspects of her life could threaten the perceptions this group has of itself and its world. If any conspiracy is revealed in the book, it is this conspiracy of the elite and privileged, which is both more subtle and more insidious -- and perhaps more dangerous -- than any so-called murder conspiracy. Luckily, this book doesn't allow Mary to be silenced. The knowledge I gained of her through the book makes me think that she would be the first to scoff at these efforts, and would want the walls to come tumbling down. In that sense, the book seems to fulfill her wishes. I greatly enjoyed it, and recommend it highly.