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A review by reneedecoskey
Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe is exactly what it sounds like. It starts with the Commodore and follows the family through until the last member of the dynasty, Cooper’s mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, died in 2019.
Some of the details about the Vanderbilts as New York elite during the gilded age are absolutely wild. Even more so than a young Anderson Cooper going to Studio 54 with his mom in the 70s. My favorite story was about a rather unfortunate looking girl who was desperate to social climb and marry rich, but since she wasn’t very attractive, her mother spent what would be $6.5 million in today’s money to throw a very lavish ball where she met a Vanderbilt (and later became one of the first women of the elite to publicly separate and divorce him before going on to support women’s suffrage in her old age). That wasn’t the best part of that party, though. It was a theme party and one of the guests came dressed as a cat. Her skirt was made of real cat tails. The bodice of her dress was made of SKINNED CAT HEADS 😳. Her hair was done around a headpiece, which was a real taxidermied cat. She wore a black ribbon around her neck with a bell and the word “puss” on it. The gilded age, man.
Some parts of it (like ones about yachts and horses) didn’t interest me that much, but the party details were pretty fantastic. I was also intrigued by the relationship (loose term) between Gloria Vanderbilt and Truman Capote… before and after he fell out of favor with everyone in NY because he was … well, he was a bitch.
Anyway, back to the Vanderbilts. The epilogue was really interesting in that Cooper walks us around New York, telling us what famous landmarks now stand in the places where his wealthy family once lived, many of them forced out after losing all their money, which is apparently the Vanderbilt way.
Very interesting read if you’re interested in things like New York society, American dynasties, Edith Wharton’s New York, etc. Audiobook is good if you prefer to have this info presented in a way that sounds like Anderson Cooper is reporting just outside the scene (it’s sometimes distracting). 3.5/5.
Some of the details about the Vanderbilts as New York elite during the gilded age are absolutely wild. Even more so than a young Anderson Cooper going to Studio 54 with his mom in the 70s. My favorite story was about a rather unfortunate looking girl who was desperate to social climb and marry rich, but since she wasn’t very attractive, her mother spent what would be $6.5 million in today’s money to throw a very lavish ball where she met a Vanderbilt (and later became one of the first women of the elite to publicly separate and divorce him before going on to support women’s suffrage in her old age). That wasn’t the best part of that party, though. It was a theme party and one of the guests came dressed as a cat. Her skirt was made of real cat tails. The bodice of her dress was made of SKINNED CAT HEADS 😳. Her hair was done around a headpiece, which was a real taxidermied cat. She wore a black ribbon around her neck with a bell and the word “puss” on it. The gilded age, man.
Some parts of it (like ones about yachts and horses) didn’t interest me that much, but the party details were pretty fantastic. I was also intrigued by the relationship (loose term) between Gloria Vanderbilt and Truman Capote… before and after he fell out of favor with everyone in NY because he was … well, he was a bitch.
Anyway, back to the Vanderbilts. The epilogue was really interesting in that Cooper walks us around New York, telling us what famous landmarks now stand in the places where his wealthy family once lived, many of them forced out after losing all their money, which is apparently the Vanderbilt way.
Very interesting read if you’re interested in things like New York society, American dynasties, Edith Wharton’s New York, etc. Audiobook is good if you prefer to have this info presented in a way that sounds like Anderson Cooper is reporting just outside the scene (it’s sometimes distracting). 3.5/5.