(#26 in the 2006 Book Challenge)

If you've ever gone through a phase of Kennedy assassination obsession, you'll recall that Ruth Paine was the friend of Marina Oswald with whom she was living at the time. Oswald kept his rifle, apparently without Paine's knowledge, in her garage. The other thing people might remember is that in many descriptions of the events leading up to the murder, Ruth Paine usually comes across as a simpering, flighty twit. In a lot of conspiracy theories, she's such a goofball that she's gotta be in on the plot to kill the President -- it seems to defy belief that someone could be that clueless. She's still alive, and Mallon worked with her to create a narrative timeline of her relationship with the Oswalds, and makes a solid case that she was neither simpering or flighty, but rather a nice lady who unknowingly got mixed up in a bad situation, and subsequently got a very bad rap in the public eye. You really had a lot of sympathy for her. She IS a nice lady. Unfortunately, I think Mallon tried to wrest some great profound truth about fate, or consequence, or cause and effect, out of her story, but it seemed so forced.

Grade: B, but it really did make me want to go chat with her over coffee cake
Recommended: to Kennedy buffs, and also to readers interested in women's narratives -- a lot of her story is very compelling on that level. ( )