I read The American Duchess years ago and I kind of wish I would have read this book first. This is the story of Consuelo Vanderbilt’s mother Alva. We have been to Newport, RI a couple of times and seen Marble House, and I thought she had divorced William Vanderbilt and had Marble House and her husband’s house Belcourt as well. It’s interesting hearing this story from her pov.

Fowler writes in her author’s note:
“One of the reasons I was compelled to tell Alva’s story (and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’s in my previous novel, Z) is to combat the way notable women in history are too often reduced to little more than sensationalized sound bites. Strong women - especially if they elect to lead lives outside of the domestic sphere - are often depicted without appropriate context, are made to seem one-note (as if any of us could be defined by a single act in our personal history or a single aspect of personality), and are described with sexist labels… “ i.e. pushy, domineering, abrasive, shrill, …

From what I knew of her, this was true. I appreciate how this novel shows her as compassionate, level headed, long suffering in her marriage, supportive of Black women, and a person who does rather than says. She is portrayed as a woman who got things done. She did her best to raise intelligent, interesting children.

This book covers her life from about the time she met William Vanderbilt to her late 50s, with some information up to her death. 

“I am certain my affections will improve, with time. He has excellent teeth." P65 (this line made me laugh!)

“…this ideal life was deficient. She was not wholly content. Perhaps she should be but contentment, she had learned, lay beyond money’s considerable each.” p201

“We have both been humbled by troubles we didn’t deserve. This is the danger of excellence, don’t you know: it invites scorn. Yet we must not permit ourselves to be any less than we are. P327

“All her life, she had so often tried to make things different. Society loved her when she was advancing its causes, then castigated her when she was advancing her own. Yet, she ere not the two ever entwined?” P385