Mrs. Paine's Garage

It was February 1963 when Ruth Hyde Paine, a Quaker housewife in suburban Dallas, first met a young man named Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina. Over the nine months that followed, Ruth offered shelter and assistance to the couple. She even found Oswald the job that put him in the Texas School Book Depository from which, on November 22, 1963, he fired the rifle he'd kept hidden in Mrs. Paine's home. Mrs. Paine's Garage is the story of this devout, openhearted woman and the role she inadvertently played in the tragedy of Dealey Plaza. It is also the story of how Ruth Paine weathered a whirlwind of suspicion and betrayal and refused to let her connection to that November calamity destroy her life. Thomas Mallon has fashioned an account of generosity and secrets -- tragic might-have-beens and eerie coincidences -- that unfolds with a gripping inevitability. Book jacket.