The Summer I Met Jack

Gable (The Book of Summer) brings Polish émigré and artist Alicia Darr to vivid life in this sparkling novel, most famously her intense romance with then-congressman John F. “Jack” Kennedy in the early ’50s. After time in a German Displaced Persons camp, Alicia takes a job as a housekeeper for the bustling, chaotic Kennedy family at their Hyannis Port, Mass., compound in 1950. Sparks fly instantly when she meets Jack. They plan to marry until Jack’s father discovers that Alicia is Jewish. Brokenhearted, Alicia moves to Hollywood and soon befriends celebrities like Katherine Hepburn and Gary Cooper, eventually marrying actor Edmund Purdom and later the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, Alfred Corning Clark, only 13 days before his death. Gable also explores Alicia’s time in Rome with eccentric artist Novella Palmisano, which leads to a few surprises in the third act. Brief interludes throughout detail the search for an heir to Alicia’s fortune after her death in 2016. Gale elegantly captures the glitter, glamour, and gossip of 1950s Hollywood without resorting to melodrama, and, while JFK is a perennially fascinating figure, this is Alicia’s story: a splendid portrait of a spirited survivor thriving in a man’s world, even as memories of Jack, her only true love, linger. This bittersweet tale will enthrall readers. 100,000-copy announced first printing. (May)