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playing a witch in an Italian movie?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid she really sign Frank Sinatra’s autobiography for $1 million?”
    â€œCategorically not true but we’re all trying.”
    â€œIs she going to marry Frank Sinatra?”
    â€œCategorically untrue and not trying.” 12
    In addition to checking her in-box, Jackie would read a circulating file filled with pink carbon paper showing how colleagues had responded to literary agents and other editors. She would do this while chewing gum at her desk—an oral diversion from smoking or biting her nails. But when she’d get up to go to an editorial meeting, she’d realize she still had gum in her mouth and pop it into a tissue like a high school girl before class.
    â€œI can’t go in to see the boss chewing gum!” she’d squeal to Singleton, who, walking beside her noted that Jackie enjoyed such gestures of deference, an instinctive way of being respectful without diminishing herself.
    She was also humble in a way that generated respect, making her own photocopies, doing most of her own typing, and keeping her office door open. She dressed in plain slacks, sweater ensembles, and simple or no jewelry, though she had museum-worthy baubles. With the exception of the Earth Shoes she sometimes wore, Singleton noted that Jackie dressed like everyone else—“just a little bit better.”
    Jackie would leave around 4:30. She worked at home, at night, and sometimes on weekends.
    Within a week, she had written a six-page memo with about thirty book ideas on a wide range of subject matters, typed with space between them to allow room for her colleagues to comment as she passed it among them and asked for their feedback.
    In a sense, she was exposing her belly, showing them she was smart, but respecting them and their experience. It was a politically astute move, providing a release valve for the fear some of the other editors had that Jackie’s books would be published over theirs. Their feedback to Jackie was honest. Well, this book already exists , said one. That is similar to another book out there , wrote another. Many of the ideas were “lovely”—Singleton’s word—but unprofitable, including producing the work of a modern Greek poet whom Jackie had met through Onassis.
    Jackie also sent a memo to the junior books department suggesting something on “word derivatives from Greek and Latin,” a coloring book “tracing the history of gold in the world,” and “an archeology coloring book” with hinged pages. 13 The response, written in memo form to “JKO,” thanked her for the ideas but said they were “not the type of thing” Viking would publish and “not the kind of book” that department was interested in.
    While she was generally delighted with the job, she was beginning to show signs of impatience. Publishing moved slowly. She wanted a project. Even with Jackie being Jackie, it took a long time to woo a big name like Frank Sinatra. Attending a concert and dinner was just a kind of foreplay.
    Guinzburg had thought for a long time about how to help Jackie learn without her having a public failure. One option was to plug her into books that were already in motion. But before the month was over, Muffie Brandon (now Cabot), the wife of Henry Brandon, the Sunday Times of London’s Washington bureau chief, came to Viking to meet with Guinzburg and pitch an idea based on an American bicentennial traveling exhibit of artifacts meant to celebrate women’s roles in the nation’s history. When Brandon arrived at the publishing house, she was pleased to walk in the room and see Jackie there, waiting with Guinzburg.
    The two had known each other for years. And Brandon had bet that the idea would appeal to the new editor’s strengths: her interest in and knowledge of history, and the ability to pull together themes and content with art.