Silent Partner by Dina Matos McGreevey

". . .an unvarnished episode of modern American political history."

Silent Partner : One woman’s struggle for clarity and understanding.

On August 12, 2004, New Jersey governor, Jim McGreevey, held a press conference that ended his term prematurely and destroyed the lives of his wife and daughter, Jacqueline, when he announced he was stepping down because of an affair he had with another man. It was the culmination of the ten-year relationship he shared with his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey who had no idea who her husband really was and how he could have deceived her for so long.

Questioning why she did not know sooner that her husband was homosexual and why she didn’t see the signs, Dina Matos puts her heart and her life on the table in Silent Partner. She spares neither herself nor her husband, and much of her story is difficult to read as she goes through the steps that led her to that fateful press conference in August.

Clearly defensive much of the time, and always brutally honest, Dina glosses over none of the facts from her point of view. She takes the reader through her emotions and doubts, fears and choices step by step, although she lingers a bit too long on the details of the political machine that she allowed to run her life for ten years. Silent Partner stirs the emotions tirelessly, but it also leaves the reader wondering how she could not have asked more questions—why she remained silent for so long, an easy observation in hindsight and from a safe distance.

What Dina Matos lacks in literary finesse she makes up for with a bright and unrelenting spotlight that uncovers the shadows around at least one of America’s consummate politicians. She is not always sympathetic, but in Silent Partner Dina Matos McGreevey tells a cautionary tale and an unvarnished episode of modern American political history we would do well to take to heart.

Reviewer: J. M. Cornwell