The Housewives Underground

The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery

By: Kaitlyn Tiffany

The untold story of the women who debunked the Warren Report—a riveting history of obsession, heartbreak, and the myth of the great American century

“Kaitlyn Tiffany masterfully unspools a hidden history of the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath.”—Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls and The Sisterhood

In the winter of 1967, the official account of the Kennedy assassination was beginning to unravel. A scattered group of Americans had pointed to major problems with the report prepared by President Johnson’s handpicked Warren Commission. Many of the most serious criticisms of the government’s work came from a source that surprised some: women who, within the community of critics, outnumbered the men two to one.

Politicians and reporters dismissed these women, referring to them as “scavengers” and suggesting they were eccentrics with murder-mystery fixations or crushes on the deceased President Kennedy. But in The Housewives Underground, Kaitlyn Tiffany resurrects the story of Maggie Field, Shirley Martin, and Sylvia Meagher, whose collaboration and friendship reshaped both their own lives and our national memory. Field hosted screenings of the Zapruder film and raised money to pursue new leads. Martin traveled frequently to Dallas, enlisted her children to help interview witnesses, and irritated J. Edgar Hoover with her “antagonistic” attitude toward the FBI.

And at the center of the story is Sylvia Meagher—a born-and-raised New Yorker who was devoted to the ballet and the Mets, cultivated fierce friendships and firm grudges, and dedicated twenty-five years to her conviction that the whole truth of JFK’s assassination had not been told.

Painstakingly researched and engrossing, The Housewives Underground takes readers back to the turbulent 1960s and 1970s—a time when Americans’ belief in their government was eroding—introducing readers to the so-called housewives who asked the first, hardest questions about one of the most shocking events in American history.

Critic reviews

“An enthralling perspective on one of the most enduring American mysteries of all, seen through the extraordinary efforts exerted by unrelenting and far-from-ordinary women. Kaitlyn Tiffany gifts us a story that is as deftly structured and impeccably researched as it is compellingly told.”—Denise Kiernan, New York Times bestselling author of Obstinate Daughters and The Girls of Atomic City

“Kaitlyn Tiffany beautifully tells the story of how the Kennedy assassination became the great American mystery. Through exquisite reporting and colorful characters, she adds a surprising new angle to our understanding of the drama around the Warren Commission and explores the country at the dawn of the age of conspiracy.”—Garrett Graff, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Watergate: A New History

“More than sixty years later, the Kennedy assassination remains the mother of all modern conspiracy theories. Chock-full of fascinating detail and insight, Kaitlyn Tiffany’s The Housewives Underground retells the story from a wholly unique angle for a new generation.”—Mark Jacobson, author of Pale Horse Rider: William Cooper, the Rise of Conspiracy, and the Fall of Trust in America

“Riveting . . . thoroughly researched.”—Kathryn Olmsted, author of Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11

“Kaitlyn Tiffany masterfully unspools a hidden history of the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath, in what amounts to a cautionary tale for our time. This meticulous, nuanced portrait traces the full arc and outsize personalities of a controversy that has deepened over decades, showing how these women—like the country—moved away from an easy trust in what government tells us and how their effort to challenge that narrative consumed and altered their lives. So interesting and so well told.”—Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls and The Sisterhood