The Editor - Struggling Writer with Mom Issues Winds up with Jackie Onassis as His Editor

Steven Rowley received the Goodreads Choice Award (Lily and the Octopus) but this sniveling novel has nothing to recommend except for excerpts that include the illusive and iconic Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (JKO).  James Smale is a struggling writer in the 1990's who somehow manages to grab the attention of JKO when she was an editor at Doubleday during the '90s.  While this miraculous feat is hard to accept, James too is stupefied by his incredulous advocate for his book.  James has never been published.  His manuscript remains uncovered to the reader.  It's known the novel is about family dynamics with an enigmatic & heroic mother at its core.  Still, Mrs. Onassis (JKO) wants more from James' novel, specifically a cogent ending for the book regarding the mother/son relationship.  James and his mother are not quite on speaking terms and the reasons for the strain are laborious to decipher.  At JKO's urging to which James is obsequious, he attempts to reconnect and understand his mother.  Mainly this is done to supplicate JKO's favor.  The intrigue that is interspersed parsimoniously all pertain to JKO's and James' time together in her office, NYC apartment and home on Martha's Vineyard.  The fascination with the former First Lady perpetuates.  Irritating, whiney and self-involved describes James as he sloughs through his writing, deceives his partner and does soul searching.  In James' defense, writing is a solitary isolating endeavor.  In one of James' more intimate encounters with JKO he bemoans how arduous he finds writing.  Her reply "Hard truths can drive people apart. But great art can bring them back together."  THE EDITOR is far from earning accolades as art.  In short there's simply not any congenial plot but for a few glimpse at Camelot.