Arthur Vanderbilt

I guess the author did the best he could with the few sources available to him. Much of the information is taken from works of fiction, and the biographer quotes extensively from these works as though they are primary source accounts of actual encounters. Really, the book is more about Peter Watson, Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote than it is about Fouts. Includes lots of extraneous details, like Capote's famous Black and White Ball, his work on "In Cold Blood," and Vidal's romance with Jimmie Trimble.… (más)

This was a very informative book and it was an enjoyable read as well. I do love history and the Vanderbilt family history is fascinating. I know that I am supposed to loathe and deplore these people for being wealthy one percenters......but I can't. People are just people and I tend to judge them by their actions rather than their economic class. I felt sympathy for some of them, especially Consuelo and Neil, the son of Cornelius and Grace Vanderbilt.

As a house geek, this book was very satisfying. I really liked reading about the construction and furnishing of the Vanderbilt homes. I think George Vanderbilt was the coolest of all; turning his back on New York society and building his little duchy in North Carolina and living the life of a gentleman farmer. (Just what I would do if a big powerball win were to roll my way)

It also just kills me that I do not have a time machine and can't go back to the times when all various Vanderbilt descendants were auctioning off all their possessions. Amazing stuff, going for pennies on the dollar and my poor self yet unborn and unable to bid. Maybe someday there will be a repeat of this with other wealthy families, but I have seen pics of Donald Trump's homes......and quite honestly, I'm not spending good money on tacky crap regardless of how much it originally cost.

So read this book and live vicariously through the Vanderbilt family for a while.....it's fun!… (más)

As a reader who follows breadcrumbs, this book is a wonderful addition to my collection of biographies that all interconnect. From 1900 to 2019, links between the famous and infamous, between the fascinating and the boring, the lives lived and shared by people who left an imprint. I enjoyed this book because I had already read biographies of so many of its denizens and what was particularly interesting about Denny was that he was a nobody, from nowhere, that touched the lives of so many of the rich and famous who folded him into their art. He has been immortalized in print by some of the 20th century's most famous authors and is noted in countless published diaries. In the end, he was pathetic and they never did say what happened to his dog Tolstoy when he died.… (más)