What do you think?
Rate this book
Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy
Exactly forty years have passed since Ruth Hyde Paine, a Quaker housewife in suburban Dallas, offered shelter and assistance to a young man named Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina. Mrs. Paine's Garage is the tragic story of this well-intentioned woman who found Oswald the job that put him six floors above Dealey Plaza-into which, on November 22, 1963, he fired a rifle he'd kept hidden inside Mrs. Paine's house. But this is also a tale of survival and resilience: the story of a devout, open-hearted woman who weathered a whirlwind of suspicion and betrayal, and who refused to allow her connection to the calamity of that November destroy her life. From these stories Thomas Mallon has fashioned an account of generosity and secrets, tragic might-have-beens and eerie coincidences, that unfolds with a gripping inevitability.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
44 people are currently reading
733 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Mallon
24 books286 followersThomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical events. He is the author of ten books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers (recently adapted into a miniseries by the same name), Watergate, Finale, Landfall, and most recently Up With the Sun. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One's Own), letters (Yours Ever) and the John F. Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine's Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos and In Fact).
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
February 19, 2013
Mrs. Paine’s Garage, published back in 2002, is an unfortunate little book. I have a distant connection to it, one that I regret.
In July 2001 its author, Thomas Mallon, sent me an email introducing himself. He briefly described his latest project – a sympathetic look at Ruth Paine, a figure in the JFK assassination – and asked if I could put him in touch with Mrs. Shirley Martin, who had known the eponymous Mrs. Paine many years before.
Mallon had apparently Googled Mrs. Martin and found no contact information. But the Internet, in its infinite thoroughness, linked my name to hers, due to some research I was then conducting. So I wrote to Mrs. Martin about Thomas Mallon, and she agreed to talk to him.
Thomas Mallon's motives for undertaking a book about Ruth Paine are unknown to me, and I won't speculate on them. But I find it hard to understand how he could write Mrs. Paine's Garage without playing at least a gentle form of devil's advocate with his subject. Such a role, which some would consider the writer's duty, might have elicited valuable information that would have greatly enhanced the resulting narrative, even if Mallon stuck to what I am convinced was a preconceived conclusion.
As it developed, there was no devil's advocacy, and consequently no real depth to Mrs. Paine's Garage. Thomas Mallon accepts the official story of the JFK assassination and, it follows, the official story of Ruth Paine and her role in that cataclysmic event.
That role, in sum, is that Ruth Paine was, in 1963, a good-hearted Quaker woman who happened to befriend Lee and Marina Oswald at a critical juncture in their lives. She allowed the pregnant Marina and one daughter (soon two) to live with her in suburban Dallas while misfit Lee dreamed the dreams of the perpetual loser, finally exacting a psycho-sicko revenge on society by murdering President Kennedy.
Thomas Mallon refers to Ruth Paine as "a vessel of disinterested kindness." Others see Mrs. Paine in a much different light.
Ruth and her husband Michael "maintain a delicate balance between intimacy and distance as concerns Lee Harvey Oswald," wrote a Paine researcher in 1995. "They exploit their role as intimate when they want to condemn Lee, and take on the mantle of being expert witnesses as to his character, and how violence-prone he was, and how capable he was [of committing] the assassination. But they conveniently distance themselves from him when they want to avoid scrutiny."
After his arrest, a desperate Lee Oswald telephoned Mrs. Paine from jail and asked her help in contacting a lawyer named John Abt. "I was quite stunned that he called at all or that he thought he could ask anything of me – appalled, really," Ruth told the Warren Commission.
Yet she did, in fact, try to reach John Abt on Oswald's behalf. Asked by the Warren Commission whether she informed Oswald she had failed to contact him, this vessel of disinterested kindness replied, "I made no effort to call the police station."
Sylvia Meagher was herself appalled, really, by this admission. "Her failure to notify Oswald that she had been unable to reach Abt, so that he would realize the urgency of obtaining legal assistance elsewhere, is unforgivable," she wrote.
There is more about Ruth and Michael Paine, a lot more – but I want to keep this fairly short.
There are portions of Mrs. Paine's Garage which are downright deceptive. In a footnote on page 57, Thomas Mallon cites an "assassination legend" that on November 22, 1963, Ruth Paine greeted Dallas Police officers with the words, "Come in, I've been expecting you." These officers had come to search Mrs. Paine's home several hours after the assassination, and the Paine garage yielded a trove of evidence damning Lee Oswald.
As others have noted, the arrival of the cops at the Paine house was not, in and of itself, suspicious; Oswald listed the Paine address on his employment application to the Texas School Book Depository. It's her greeting that seemed so odd, even to the police. When they arrived at the Paine home, Lee Oswald had not yet been publicly identified as an assassination suspect.
In any case, Ruth Paine firmly denies the greeting attributed to her, telling Thomas Mallon, "I was not expecting them and I did not say that."
Maybe she didn't. But the allegation is not a "legend," which my dictionary says is an unverifiable story handed down by tradition. No, it comes from the testimony of several of the cops, including Dallas Police Detective Guy F. Rose, who before he testified raised his right hand and swore that what he was about to say was the truth and nothing but, so help him God. Maybe Detective Rose perjured himself. But this is not a legend, it is sworn testimony. And maybe it is true.
It is worth mentioning that Shirley Martin, who is now deceased, later told me that after making contact with her, Thomas Mallon said some things to her that may not be true. Shirley said he told her that he would be able to quote her letters to Ruth Paine in his book, whether Shirley gave him permission or not.
This is almost certainly incorrect. Writers are restricted on what they can quote without permission. It is a matter of intellectual property.
"I hope," Shirley Martin said, "he is not another Posner."
He wasn't, but not for lack of trying. Mrs. Paine's Garage was duly published, and excerpted in The New Yorker, and lauded by the usual media sluts. It appears, finally, to have sunk into a well-deserved oblivion.
In July 2001 its author, Thomas Mallon, sent me an email introducing himself. He briefly described his latest project – a sympathetic look at Ruth Paine, a figure in the JFK assassination – and asked if I could put him in touch with Mrs. Shirley Martin, who had known the eponymous Mrs. Paine many years before.
Mallon had apparently Googled Mrs. Martin and found no contact information. But the Internet, in its infinite thoroughness, linked my name to hers, due to some research I was then conducting. So I wrote to Mrs. Martin about Thomas Mallon, and she agreed to talk to him.
Thomas Mallon's motives for undertaking a book about Ruth Paine are unknown to me, and I won't speculate on them. But I find it hard to understand how he could write Mrs. Paine's Garage without playing at least a gentle form of devil's advocate with his subject. Such a role, which some would consider the writer's duty, might have elicited valuable information that would have greatly enhanced the resulting narrative, even if Mallon stuck to what I am convinced was a preconceived conclusion.
As it developed, there was no devil's advocacy, and consequently no real depth to Mrs. Paine's Garage. Thomas Mallon accepts the official story of the JFK assassination and, it follows, the official story of Ruth Paine and her role in that cataclysmic event.
That role, in sum, is that Ruth Paine was, in 1963, a good-hearted Quaker woman who happened to befriend Lee and Marina Oswald at a critical juncture in their lives. She allowed the pregnant Marina and one daughter (soon two) to live with her in suburban Dallas while misfit Lee dreamed the dreams of the perpetual loser, finally exacting a psycho-sicko revenge on society by murdering President Kennedy.
Thomas Mallon refers to Ruth Paine as "a vessel of disinterested kindness." Others see Mrs. Paine in a much different light.
Ruth and her husband Michael "maintain a delicate balance between intimacy and distance as concerns Lee Harvey Oswald," wrote a Paine researcher in 1995. "They exploit their role as intimate when they want to condemn Lee, and take on the mantle of being expert witnesses as to his character, and how violence-prone he was, and how capable he was [of committing] the assassination. But they conveniently distance themselves from him when they want to avoid scrutiny."
After his arrest, a desperate Lee Oswald telephoned Mrs. Paine from jail and asked her help in contacting a lawyer named John Abt. "I was quite stunned that he called at all or that he thought he could ask anything of me – appalled, really," Ruth told the Warren Commission.
Yet she did, in fact, try to reach John Abt on Oswald's behalf. Asked by the Warren Commission whether she informed Oswald she had failed to contact him, this vessel of disinterested kindness replied, "I made no effort to call the police station."
Sylvia Meagher was herself appalled, really, by this admission. "Her failure to notify Oswald that she had been unable to reach Abt, so that he would realize the urgency of obtaining legal assistance elsewhere, is unforgivable," she wrote.
There is more about Ruth and Michael Paine, a lot more – but I want to keep this fairly short.
There are portions of Mrs. Paine's Garage which are downright deceptive. In a footnote on page 57, Thomas Mallon cites an "assassination legend" that on November 22, 1963, Ruth Paine greeted Dallas Police officers with the words, "Come in, I've been expecting you." These officers had come to search Mrs. Paine's home several hours after the assassination, and the Paine garage yielded a trove of evidence damning Lee Oswald.
As others have noted, the arrival of the cops at the Paine house was not, in and of itself, suspicious; Oswald listed the Paine address on his employment application to the Texas School Book Depository. It's her greeting that seemed so odd, even to the police. When they arrived at the Paine home, Lee Oswald had not yet been publicly identified as an assassination suspect.
In any case, Ruth Paine firmly denies the greeting attributed to her, telling Thomas Mallon, "I was not expecting them and I did not say that."
Maybe she didn't. But the allegation is not a "legend," which my dictionary says is an unverifiable story handed down by tradition. No, it comes from the testimony of several of the cops, including Dallas Police Detective Guy F. Rose, who before he testified raised his right hand and swore that what he was about to say was the truth and nothing but, so help him God. Maybe Detective Rose perjured himself. But this is not a legend, it is sworn testimony. And maybe it is true.
It is worth mentioning that Shirley Martin, who is now deceased, later told me that after making contact with her, Thomas Mallon said some things to her that may not be true. Shirley said he told her that he would be able to quote her letters to Ruth Paine in his book, whether Shirley gave him permission or not.
This is almost certainly incorrect. Writers are restricted on what they can quote without permission. It is a matter of intellectual property.
"I hope," Shirley Martin said, "he is not another Posner."
He wasn't, but not for lack of trying. Mrs. Paine's Garage was duly published, and excerpted in The New Yorker, and lauded by the usual media sluts. It appears, finally, to have sunk into a well-deserved oblivion.
June 27, 2016
This book is an excellent example of how a charitable impulse can place you firmly on the stage of world events and leave you blinking in the spotlight long after most of the audience is gone. Ruth Paine had the bad luck to have Marina Oswald and her offspring stay in her house while Lee Harvey Oswald was employed elsewhere. Mrs Paine also permitted use of her garage for storage of the Oswalds' effects, which apparently resulted in her unwitting harboring of the blanket-wrapped assassination rifle. She also had the great misfortune of being the person who gave Oswald the tip about the job opening in the book depository building.
Thomas Mallon's book is based mostly upon this remote connection to Kennedy's murder. Although Paine never laid eyes on the rifle, much of her time for the next 40 years was spent in being interviewed, interrogated, and just generally harassed over her minor role in this historic event. She has been quoted in print and depicted on film and has become a celebrity way out of proportion to her actual involvement. Let's face it: if Oswald had used the rifle to shoot some homeless person, Paine's name probably wouldn't even make the evening news.
The reader will learn remarkably little about the assassination here; Mallon seems to think that Oswald shot Kennedy on a whim. This puts him firmly in the "Lone Nut" camp...he seems scornful of conspiracy theorists. He touches very little on Oswald, less on the titular garage...in effect, this is the story of Mrs Paine, and a lesson for the rest of us: No good deed goes unpunished.
Thomas Mallon's book is based mostly upon this remote connection to Kennedy's murder. Although Paine never laid eyes on the rifle, much of her time for the next 40 years was spent in being interviewed, interrogated, and just generally harassed over her minor role in this historic event. She has been quoted in print and depicted on film and has become a celebrity way out of proportion to her actual involvement. Let's face it: if Oswald had used the rifle to shoot some homeless person, Paine's name probably wouldn't even make the evening news.
The reader will learn remarkably little about the assassination here; Mallon seems to think that Oswald shot Kennedy on a whim. This puts him firmly in the "Lone Nut" camp...he seems scornful of conspiracy theorists. He touches very little on Oswald, less on the titular garage...in effect, this is the story of Mrs Paine, and a lesson for the rest of us: No good deed goes unpunished.
September 26, 2012
Details the part Ruth Paine played in the assassination. Marina Oswald and her children were living with Ruth on November 22, 1963 and it is believed that the rifle Lee Harvey Oswald used to shoot the president was stored in Ruth's garage. Also tells how the whole "conspiracy epidemic" has affected the Paines in years since.
November 28, 2012
Very interesting read for anyone interested in the JFK assassination or conspiracy theories. My only complain is that Mallon writes as if Ruth Paine is an absolute saint, which gets tiring/annoying after a while. Wrote a paper on this and got an A. HOLLA.
February 19, 2014
Interesting idea for a book. I've been reading a lot about Oswald so every perspective adds to my knowledge. Opinions and recollections also change in the years. Worth reading.
November 24, 2020
A must read for those wanting to learn more about the events surrounding November 22, 1963.
June 28, 2021
A few months ago I was casting around for more true crime/mysteries to read, and fell into a rabbit hole. What I wanted to do was read one book that just laid out the facts of the JFK assassination, then read another with the best evidence for the lone gunman theory, and finally a third laying out the best arguments/evidence for conspiracy.
I realized quickly that these sort of books don’t really exist; at least not in an easily discoverable way (there are long diatribes pro/con about all of the major JFK books). I them decided to start with the Warren Commission Report, since it seems to be the lynchpin of the whole boondoggle. But then I wavered, because I also realized that reading the 900 page report (not to mention the 26 supplemental volumes of evidence) would only be the start.
So after spending several days bouncing around the assassination-o-verse online, I gave it up. I didn’t want to make a hobby of JFK “research”. Besides, my time spent online had given me the broad strokes of the various factions and their beliefs, and I’d come away from it exhausted.
But it kept niggling at the back of my brain, and on a whim, I bought this book a few days ago. The Oswalds (mostly Marina and kids) lived with Ruth Paine off and on for about 9 months in 1963; Lee H. came by on weekends and spent the night of 22 November there.
The book isn’t really about her time with the Oswalds; it’s more a thoughtful reflection on how History-with-a-capital-H swept up this kind, unassuming woman and how it affected her life afterwards, based mostly on interviews with Ruth Paine (she’s still alive, and so is Marina!)
The author is not a conspiracy theorist, although he acknowledges the many remaining mysteries.
I realized quickly that these sort of books don’t really exist; at least not in an easily discoverable way (there are long diatribes pro/con about all of the major JFK books). I them decided to start with the Warren Commission Report, since it seems to be the lynchpin of the whole boondoggle. But then I wavered, because I also realized that reading the 900 page report (not to mention the 26 supplemental volumes of evidence) would only be the start.
So after spending several days bouncing around the assassination-o-verse online, I gave it up. I didn’t want to make a hobby of JFK “research”. Besides, my time spent online had given me the broad strokes of the various factions and their beliefs, and I’d come away from it exhausted.
But it kept niggling at the back of my brain, and on a whim, I bought this book a few days ago. The Oswalds (mostly Marina and kids) lived with Ruth Paine off and on for about 9 months in 1963; Lee H. came by on weekends and spent the night of 22 November there.
The book isn’t really about her time with the Oswalds; it’s more a thoughtful reflection on how History-with-a-capital-H swept up this kind, unassuming woman and how it affected her life afterwards, based mostly on interviews with Ruth Paine (she’s still alive, and so is Marina!)
The author is not a conspiracy theorist, although he acknowledges the many remaining mysteries.
January 1, 2019
Mallon writes about bystanders to history -- this time, a work of nonfiction. Interesting and thoughtful. (Note that Mallon wrote the book in 2000-02. Since then the Paine house in Irving has been turned into a museum.)
June 6, 2020
I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought that I would. Living in Dallas area all my life, I am somewhat familiar with the Kennedy assassination of course but I had never read or heard much about Ruth Paine. So I thought that this book would be a new and exciting angle. Instead, I found it to be a somewhat bland retelling of details surrounding the story and got the distinct impression that the author assumed that if you were reading this book, you were already intimately familiar with the story from other viewpoints. The best bits were mentions of other pieces that were never quite explained. While still mildly interesting, I did not find this to be a compelling read.
July 27, 2011
I read this because my family has a very tangential connection with Mrs. Paine (a relative was her roommate at one point, long before the time period covered in this book). Well-researched and written, and certainly conveys the difficulty a conscientious, peace-loving Quaker woman had in dealing with the knowledge that her garage once housed the gun Lee Harvey Oswald used to shoot JFK. Also, the sheer amount of background info SHOULD prove to anyone that there was no conspiracy, no magic bullet, etc....but it probably won't. I read library copy.
January 21, 2016
This is an odd little book. Mostly it's about Ruth Paine, in whose home Marina Oswald was living at the time of the Kennedy assassination. A Quaker, a liberal rather out of place in Texas, Paine is quite sympathetically portrayed. Not so her houseguest or her occasionally visiting husband Lee. Author Mallon accepts the 'lone gunman' hypothesis, fails to address the very many holes in the Warren Commission's study and ridicules conspiracy theorists, especially those associated with the Garrison enquiry.
July 1, 2019
I really like Thomas Mallon but I had a hard time understanding how he believed Mrs. Paine though. I do not believe in conincidences. There is more to this woman and her husband. You cannot believe her or her husband.
September 1, 2012
Meh...it started out good, but then it just kind of dragged on with the last two sections. It wasn't quite what I expected.
February 12, 2020
I didn’t finish this. It was terrible. There was no history and the narrative was grossly repetitive. Don’t read.
June 7, 2022
I discovered this book when learning of a documentary made about Ruth Hyde Paine and the brief time she let the Oswald's live in her home in Texas, just prior to and in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I still haven't seen the documentary and probably won't, short of buying it, which I don't want to do. I do believe the author approached this subject with an open mind and unbiased opinions, upon it's inception. The reader can't help but realize that Thomas Mallon was as frustrated as anyone would be in the acts of Mrs. Paine in her efforts to live a Quaker life. He says himself there are times she comes across as unbelievable in her spirituality and reasoning for doing what she did...and did not do, like reporting evidence of a rifle in her house and what it's owner might be planning on doing with it. The most valid point the author made, in my opinion is when he speculated that by not admitting to any ulterior motives (her need to ease her own loneliness in Texas with the companionship of this Russian woman that she knew virtually nothing about.) Toward the end of the book there are plenty of people who will tell you that Mrs. Oswald, the wife, did for Marina and no one else. Knowing the history of the players, I would agree with that. It also was a nice reminder, in a very unkind way--so un-Quakerlike-- of what a monster Oswald's mother, Marguerite, was to deal with in terms of wanting fame, money, and equal sympathy for her murdering son. If you haven't read it, and you think you've read everything about that time in United States history. I wouldn't purchase it. A good library system should be able to find it for you. The book truly does zero in on the Paine family and "what it all means" in the grand scheme of things and the "what ifs" that can't be undone.
April 22, 2022
2002 book about Ruth Hyde Paine who was inadvertently involved in the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Mrs. Paine had opened her Irvine Texas home to Marina Oswald and her daughters. She suggested the Texas Book Depository job to Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald kept the rifle used to kill JFK in her garage. He stayed at the house overnight November 21, then he collected the rifle and went to work the following morning.
Mallon, whose novels have been set in American history, based his fascinating piece of non-fiction on extensive interviews with Ruth Paine and other surviving witnesses of events then almost forty years in the past.
Ruth and her husband, Michael, were key witnesses in the Warren Commision's investigation. Among conspiracy theorists, the Paine's have long been suspected of having been agents for a government agency such as the CIA or FBI. Mallon believes that Oswald acted alone as do the Paines. He disparages New Orleans DA Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone's movie JFK and the fanatics and/or hobbyists who have continued to plague Ruth.
However, Mallon is also interested in Ruth Paine herself. Why did she take in Marina Oswald? One reason was that Ruth was studying Russian and welcomed a chance to converse with a native speaker. Ruth, then separated from Michael and isolated in conservative Texas, enjoyed Marina's company.
Mallon posits that the explanation can be found in Ruth Paine's character. She was born into an old- line American family. A woman with deep spiritual values, she joined the Quakers while at Antioch college. Throughout her life she was devoted to the service of others. Many questioned her altruism and naivety, she was too good to be true, what was her angle? Mallon points out that people often are more troubled by encountering goodness than evil.
Ruth's always think the best of everyone attitude kept her from realizing the kind of man Lee Harvey was. It made Marina's coldness post November 11 more painful. It obviously entranced Mallon who posits Ruth as kind of secular saint.
The assassination of President Kennedy has been referred to as the death of American innocence. It is one of history's quirks that so excellent an example of that innocence was a witness.
Mallon, whose novels have been set in American history, based his fascinating piece of non-fiction on extensive interviews with Ruth Paine and other surviving witnesses of events then almost forty years in the past.
Ruth and her husband, Michael, were key witnesses in the Warren Commision's investigation. Among conspiracy theorists, the Paine's have long been suspected of having been agents for a government agency such as the CIA or FBI. Mallon believes that Oswald acted alone as do the Paines. He disparages New Orleans DA Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone's movie JFK and the fanatics and/or hobbyists who have continued to plague Ruth.
However, Mallon is also interested in Ruth Paine herself. Why did she take in Marina Oswald? One reason was that Ruth was studying Russian and welcomed a chance to converse with a native speaker. Ruth, then separated from Michael and isolated in conservative Texas, enjoyed Marina's company.
Mallon posits that the explanation can be found in Ruth Paine's character. She was born into an old- line American family. A woman with deep spiritual values, she joined the Quakers while at Antioch college. Throughout her life she was devoted to the service of others. Many questioned her altruism and naivety, she was too good to be true, what was her angle? Mallon points out that people often are more troubled by encountering goodness than evil.
Ruth's always think the best of everyone attitude kept her from realizing the kind of man Lee Harvey was. It made Marina's coldness post November 11 more painful. It obviously entranced Mallon who posits Ruth as kind of secular saint.
The assassination of President Kennedy has been referred to as the death of American innocence. It is one of history's quirks that so excellent an example of that innocence was a witness.
May 10, 2021
Most of Mallon’s books take an historical event and augment it with many characters, events, places, conversations, etc. that are entirely fictional. They often engage in a separate but parallel story. He calls those works “historical fiction” and states elsewhere that in that term, as in language generally, adjectives are subservient to the nouns they modify.
This book is different. It is not primarily fiction. Although the actual conversations between Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald are informed by Mallon’s extensive interaction with Mrs. Paine, they are the author’s invention. Virtually everything else in the book comes from the historical record, including formal testimony, and the recollections of the participants.
Mallon emphasizes and accepts the veracity of his documentary and interview sources in preference to the conspiratorial industry which has grown out of this assassination, although he seems to describe the nature of the latter with considerable accuracy.
This is more a history centered around a somewhat peripheral family, a strategy used in his other novels by employing fictional characters but in this one conveyed through a remarkable and very real, well documented Mrs. Paine.
I am an admirer of Mallon’s other works and found this one a stellar and appealing story.
This book is different. It is not primarily fiction. Although the actual conversations between Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald are informed by Mallon’s extensive interaction with Mrs. Paine, they are the author’s invention. Virtually everything else in the book comes from the historical record, including formal testimony, and the recollections of the participants.
Mallon emphasizes and accepts the veracity of his documentary and interview sources in preference to the conspiratorial industry which has grown out of this assassination, although he seems to describe the nature of the latter with considerable accuracy.
This is more a history centered around a somewhat peripheral family, a strategy used in his other novels by employing fictional characters but in this one conveyed through a remarkable and very real, well documented Mrs. Paine.
I am an admirer of Mallon’s other works and found this one a stellar and appealing story.
September 16, 2022
A very interesting perspective of one of the most tragic events in U.S. history. It tells the story of how Ruth Paine, a kindly, conscientious Philadelphia turned Dallas Quaker, took into her house a struggling young couple. They turned out to be Mr. and Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald. Mallon uses Mrs. Paine's tale as a cross-section of history, a case study in the transformation of America over nearly 40 years from the assassination in 1963 to the publishing of the book in 2002. We see how dramatically things have changed because of the unmovable guilelessness of the heroine. She was a very smart woman, but there is a sort of Forrest-Gump-like quality to her life--she manages to keep her integrity and honesty while all around her people are giving in to madness. Her goodness sets into stark relief those around her--Oswald's "hideously encumbered soul" and Jim Garrison's lunacy. Central to her life was her faith, the quality that allowed her to stand and live a normal life and not be consumed, as so many involved with the assassination were. This is a greatly entertaining, compassionate, and enlightening book, and one that should be read by anyone wishing to understand the differences between myth, history, and memory.
Read
August 22, 2025#mrspainesgarage by #thomasmallon originally published in 2002. I read this as it was recommended by#jamesellroy I read libra by Don delillo a few years ago for the same reason. Ellroy is one of my favourite writers so his book #americanrabloid about the jfk assassination is in my opinion obviously superior to these books he found enjoyable. This one in particular has an interesting approach viewing events from the perspective of family ‘friend’/landlady. I understand it may originally have been a series of articles rather than a book. It doesn’t seem to justify book length (albeit it is still a rather short book) as it feels like there is a fair bit of filler. Mrs paine’s background and childhood and relationships are covered in the first quarter of the book and are not really necessary but do provide a little context. Despite those mild criticisms it was interesting to see how an ordinary person can get caught up in major historical events and be affected by interviews from police, fbi, secret service, political investigative commissions, prosecutors, journalists and authors. How their actions, words and behaviour can be misinterpreted. How conspiracy theories can twist things out of all proportion and how memory is ultimately unreliable.
September 11, 2025
Meticulously researched and written in a mesmerizing and humanizing way, this novel does a deep dive into Ruth Paine, someone I had never heard of until I visited her old house in Irving, TX which has been converted into a “museum” essentially restoring the entire house to the exact way it was in November 1963. This book is like that house: a meaningful and moving portrait of a life taken over (though, incredibly, also not taken over) by an event that is only tangentially related. Here Ruth Paine is the main character and Lee Harvey Oswald is a secondary character (with his wife Marina playing a larger role than him). This book offers a number of insights for anyone interested in the Kennedy assassination and often attempts to lay out facts without getting carried away by conspiracy and finger-pointing (aside from maybe a little too heavy handed admonishing of Michael Paine for not mentioning seeing a picture of Oswald with a gun long before the shooting). The Ruth Paine house (specifically the garage) is where Oswald kept the gun he used on the fateful day in 1963 and here we get a deep dive into what that meant for Ruth Paine.
March 25, 2017
This 2002 non-fiction book is really a long essay/magazine piece, but very interesting as a focused history of one person/family. With so many JFK assassination books, why another? This is from the perspective of someone in the heart of the assassin's life: Ruth Hyde Paine, the Quaker woman who wanted to know the Russian language, so invited a new emigre named Marita Oswald to be her friend. After Marita separates from her husband, Lee, she moves her children to Ruth's home. Later, Lee stores a package with his rifle there, stored in 'Mrs. Paine's garage". The morning of November 22, the package, (that Paine didn't know was there), is gone, and the garage light the left on. Ruth's journey shows what such fame and association with a terrible event is like. This book also shows that no matter what good intentions, events seem to lead us wherever they will, and we can only respond accordingly. Truly, this book is an unique read.
July 12, 2019
I was familiar with much of Mallon's fiction, but had not heard of this book until recently. It covers the life of Ruth Paine, a young housewife who had befriended Marina Oswald several months before the November, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. Then shortly before that day, she invited Marina to stay at her home while Lee H. Oswald looked for work. Meanwhile, Lee Oswald maintained a separate residence, but visited his wife and children now and then at Ruth's home. At some point during this time he stored the rifle used in the assassination in Ruth's garage. Mallon takes this as a jumping off point to look how it not only turned Ruth Paine's life upside down, but the effect it has had on the country as a whole.
December 24, 2019
I've read a bunch of books about the JFK Assassination. I'm half fascinated because it more or less remains unsolved and half fascinated because it happened right here in Dallas. This short read took a unique angle, focusing on Ruth Paine, the Quaker housewife who let Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife live in her North Dallas home. His rifle was stored in her garage up until he fired it (if you think he really did). Though it was an interesting premise, there wasn't a lot to add to the overall narrative - though, on second thought, maybe that's the whole point: sometimes average people get mixed up in crazy things.
Read
March 30, 2020"Once out of Dealey Plaza, any visitor to Dallas who takes the assassination bus tour will find himself mostly a pilgrim among ruins. Jack Ruby's Carousel Club is gone, and his old apartment gutted. The Texas Theater, where Oswald was captured, has closed. But 214 Neely Street, with its narrow clapboards, remains standing, a kind of seedy totem to the durability of the capitalist system Oswald imagined he was helping to erase from the world. As the Dallas Morning News reported in November 2000, the 'duplex is still a functioning residence. Judith Wilson, the downstairs tenant, charges visitors $5 to borrow a toy rifle and pose in the back yard.'"
May 14, 2022
The author has done a wonderful job of talking about one person who had, on one level, a minor role to play in the story of Kennedy's assassination but as the author reveals it was a more important role than it might seem at first glance and her life is of great interest.
The writer is so skilled at storytelling, his novels are masterpieces and he demonstrates that in writing nonfiction stories tied to real events can still be told powerfully. Along the way he gives brief but marvelous stories of some of the people who inhabit the community made up of people who believe in conspiracy theories.
The writer is so skilled at storytelling, his novels are masterpieces and he demonstrates that in writing nonfiction stories tied to real events can still be told powerfully. Along the way he gives brief but marvelous stories of some of the people who inhabit the community made up of people who believe in conspiracy theories.
December 8, 2022
This was my book club's selection for November 2022. We've all read, heard, been taught about the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald so I wasn't particularly excited about reading this book. But I hadn't ever heard of Ruth Paine, so I learned quite a bit. Ruth Paine took in Lee and Marina Oswald in the months before the assassination. She helped Oswald get the job at the book depository. He kept his belongings which included the rifle used to kill JFK in her garage. But she was totally clueless about his intentions to commit the assassination. It is an interesting book about an odd person who was kind and caring and caught up in a horrible ordeal.
March 19, 2018
This book has a very interesting storyline for such a tiny piece of the puzzle that makes up the historical event of JKF's assignation. I found that the book was very one sided and tended to drag in some parts as if the author did not have enough information to fill the pages. The author painted a delicate and naive picture of Mrs. Paine. She is portrayed as a very unfortunate good samaritan whose kind deed would cast suspicion and doubt on her for years. This is a good read for Kennedy enthusiasts but I did find the book slow moving and simply lacking in some parts.
September 6, 2023
I enjoyed the book and found out a lot about events surrounding the assassination of JFK that I did not know. I was about 10 at the time and have always lived in Texas. I only moved to Dallas in 1985. Mrs. Paine's house was bought by the City of Irving and made into a museum. I have not been there, but I did drive by the boarding house/duplex where Lee Harvey Oswald lived before the assassination, which is in south Dallas. It doesn't look like it has change much. I have been to the Sixth Floor museum and, of course, seen the "x" on the street where Kennedy's car was when he was shot.
November 23, 2021
overall it was a really thorough overview, but i would like it to have focused more on oswald’s relationship with marina and ruth, but i understand the author was trying to distance himself from mainstream biographies of him. i also didn’t like how redundant it got at times, like it could have been shorter and kept repeating itself. but i did enjoy it; this was a very fun read
December 4, 2017
Interesting story of an individual who was connected with the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, but the writing is at times hard to follow and the described interactions between Paine and the Oswalds is mixed with absurd conspiracies associated with the murder of JFK.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews