Mrs. Paine's Garage

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 to 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.

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 to 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.

San Francisco Chronicle

"Fresh and unexpected. Out of the darkness of an iconic American tragedy, Mallon finds an overlooked but bright figure."

Thomas Mallon's books include the novels Henry and Clara, and Dewey Defeats Truman, as well as a collection of essays, In Fact. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the American Scholar, and GQ. He lives in Westport, Connecticut.