Is it understood Mrs Mack was a member of the Caxton Club, a historical and literary society based in Chicago. In an interview last year with the club’s magazine, Mrs Mack said that after leaving university, where she had studied political science, she had worked for Senator Kennedy as a researcher.
She later returned to college to complete a PhD at the University of Chicago under the direction of the novelist Saul Bellow, who died in 2005. “It was an extraordinary time,” she told the magazine. “We studied the books Bellow wanted to study, which included the authors Joyce, Fitzgerald, Dickens, and Balzac. Of course, I also read all of his own books, but we never discussed them.”
Mrs Mack was married to the composer and arranger James Mack. He died in 2006. He had worked on more than 60 albums for artists including Nancy Wilson and Jerry Butler.
