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by Brenda Pizzo (Author)
Set in a time capsule of the 1960s, The First Lady & The Writer, Provincetown 1961 is an historical fiction novella that has as characters real people, Jackie Kennedy and Gore Vidal and centers on a real-life event. In 1961, on the last day of August First Lady, Jackie Kennedy spent a day with Gore Vidal in the Cape Cod fishing village of Provincetown, Massachusetts. At that time, she was the most famous woman on the planet. Even so, she and Vidal thought it was possible for her to join him, not in disguise or under cover of night, but by hiding in plain sight in broad daylight. They pulled it off. Jackie meets Gore at his motel, they walk through town, have cocktails and dinner, take in a play and are refused entry into a private drinking club. JACQUELINE BOUVIER KENNEDY had recently become First Lady. She was married to John F. Kennedy, the 35th President, a mother of two young children and highly intelligent. Just 31, she was thrust onto the world stage and determined to take her place on it. Greeted by two hundred-fifty-thousand adoring French citizens lining the streets of Paris was a powerful and intoxicating invitation. GORE VIDAL became a published author by the time he left the army at 21. He was intelligent, arrogant, gay and unapologetic. Related by marriage, in youth their paths never crossed. As adults, they became friends. Both had challenging upper class childhoods that brought advantages to prepare them for their worlds and their places in it. Both grabbed the limelight with a vengeance. But for Jackie, the assassination complicated how she would come to view fame. Each are depicted not as the larger than life personifications they presented to the world at their zenith, but as sophisticated, real, and down to earth people. The book delves deeply into Jackie's and Gore's distinct personalities and the journey they each traveled to arrive at this particular place in time.
