The women behind the men who made America's royal family, whose pain and grief we've shared through the decades. A captivating look into their faith, their politics, their marriages, their tragedies, their triumphs, their stories. The Kennedy Wives tells the story of five remarkable women at the heart of America's royal family: Rose, the steely matriarch who counted among her nine children three senators, an attorney general, and a president, Jackie, whose beauty and style transfixed the world, and whose grace in the face of tragedy would inspire it; Ethel, an irrepressible prankster whose fierce competitiveness and hyper-fertility would exemplify the vigor of the Kennedy clan; Joan, the blonde bombshell whose struggles with alcoholism and a cheating husband were played out under the media's pitiless gaze; and Vicki, a powerful litigator, a Catholic feminist, and the woman who turned Jed around. They are bound together by their marriages to powerful men, membership in one of the world's richest families, and by the many tragedies the Kennedys have survived. Yet these women are united also by their strength of character, force of personality, and the intelligence with which they wielded their unmistakable power. Book jacket.