Review of "The Perfect Mother: A Novel of Suspense" by Aimee Molloy

A group of expectant mothers in a nice Brooklyn neighborhood become acquainted through a website called 'The Village', a forum that provides tips for pregnant women and new moms.

The future moms - who call themselves the 'May Mothers' because all their due dates are in May - communicate via email and have biweekly meetings in a park. There they sit under a tree, chit chat, and share snacks.



Some of the gals also do other things together, like working out, going for walks, attending birthing classes, etc.



After the May Mothers give birth, they start to bring their infants to the meetings, and talk about the exhaustion of new motherhood, breast feeding, maternity leave, jobs, partners, finances, and so on.



The most active members of the group are:

🞇 Francie - a freelance photographer married to a struggling architect. The couple has financial troubles.



🞇 Colette - an aspiring novelist who's ghostwriting a memoir for the mayor. Her partner is a successful writer.



🞇 Nell - a British IT expert who works for a magazine publisher. Nell's husband disapproves of the undocumented nanny she hired, fearing they'll get into trouble.



🞇 Scarlet - a stay-at-home mom married to a successful physician. They're moving to the suburbs



🞇 Winnie - a single mom who's more private than the other women.



🞇 Token - the only man in the group, a stay-at-home dad. The women assume he's gay.



Several of the group members decide to have a night out, away from the babies, and arrange to meet at a neighborhood bar called the Jolly Llama. Single mom Winnie is reluctant to leave her 2-month-old son Midas with a babysitter, but Nell INSISTS Winnie come out, and even provides the sitter. The ladies dance and drink at the Jolly Llama, some of them a bit too much.



The night out has tragic consequences, because Winnie's babysitter falls asleep and baby Midas goes missing. Police detectives question the babysitter, interview the moms who were at the Jolly Llama, follow up on tips from the public, and so on.



The media also goes into high gear, and the personal lives of the moms are exposed, along with secrets they've been hiding.



The public offers its two cents as well, castigating the moms for going out drinking; calling them bad mothers; saying Midas (if found) shouldn't be returned to his mother; and so on.



The cops don't make headway finding Midas, and then a murder occurs. The public berates the authorities, saying the police and mayor are incompetent. Several of the May Mothers, especially Francie, Collette, and Nell, agree the police are bungling the case, and determine to find baby Midas themselves.

The ladies have a bit of an inside track because Collette - who's ghostwriting the mayor's memoir - is able to peek at police files in the mayor's office, and Nell - the IT expert - can hack into computer files. As for Francie, she goes to great (and icky) lengths to investigate men she considers suspects.



The novel is interspersed with mothering tips from 'The Village' as well as passages from the person who took Midas.



I like the novel, which has the requisite misdirection and surprises. My major criticism would be the perp's long drawn explanation after the climax, explaining exactly what was done and why. This is too much 'telling' and not enough 'showing.'

The book is slated to become a movie, with Kerry Washington in a lead role.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty" by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe

 

Journalist Anderson Cooper, scion of the (once) fabulously wealthy Vanderbilt family, was silent about his heritage for most of his life. Then, when Anderson's mother Gloria Vanderbilt reached her nineties, Cooper published the book The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss - which details his mother's fascinating history.


Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt

The Vanderbilts are a larger-than-life clan that made and squandered huge fortunes over the generations. After the death of his mother, Cooper was going through her boxes of journals, documents, letters, and other memorabilia, and he 'began to hear the voices of his ancestors.' Wanting to know more, Cooper decided to research his heritage. This book, written with historian Katherine Howe, is the result.

Cooper's ancestors arrived in the New World in the 1600s, when a Dutch farmer named Jan Aertsen van der Bilt ('from the Bilt'), arrived in New Amsterdam (the future New York).




New Amsterdam in the 1600s

By the 1700s Jan Aertsen's descendant Jacob van der Bilt lived in Staten Island, and this branch of the family gave rise to Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt - the man who made the family's initial fortune. Cornelius started out by running ferry boats on the Staten Island waterfront in the early 1800s, when he was eleven years old.


Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt


Young Cornelius ran ferries on the Staten Island waterfront in the 1800s

Cornelius then graduated to running steamboats between New York and New Jersey at the age of twenty-three, and went on to establish a vast shipping and railroad empire.


Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt built a railroad empire

Cooper and Howe write, "Commodore Vanderbilt was a master manipulator, disseminator, and inventor of his own legend [who] reveled in attention, in being feared by men in business with him and, certainly by men in business against him. He was feared also by his children, whose lives he dominated. More than anything else, however, the Commodore thrived on money. When his final breath escaped his body, this man would leave behind a veritable monument of money." In fact the Commodore left $100 million, the equivalent of more than $2 billion today.


Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was obsessed with money

The Commodore left most of his estate to his favorite son Billy "the blatherskite" Vanderbilt, to the dismay of the other siblings.


Billy ('the blatherskite') Vanderbilt, the Commodore's favorite son

The dark side of wealth had already started to plague the family, as shown by the Commodore's namesake Cornelius II, who was a terrible businessman, habitual gambler, and big spender who was always in debt.


Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the Commodore's namesake

The Commodore wanted to leave his money to a son that would make his fortune grow, not fritter it away. And Billy the blatherskite did just that, which helped him shoehorn the Vanderbilts into New York's elite.

In the 1800s, New York high society was governed by snobs and nobs who didn't welcome the nouveau riche into their ranks. The authors write, "The Commodore, despite his wealth, had been a boor. His manners had been coarse. He chewed tobacco; he could barely read." Though the Commodore built his house near New York's most fashionable neighborhood, Washington Square, "he never tried to soften his calloused edges to gain acceptance by the city's oldest and wealthiest families." Billy changed all this.

Billy increased the Vanderbilt fortune, and was determined to use his wealth to infiltrate New York's beau monde. Denied a box at the Academy of Music, where high society attended the opera and important balls, Billy organized the construction of the Metropolitan Opera House, which opened in 1880.


Metropolitan Opera House in New York

Cooper and Howe observe, "The Met pulled out all the decorative stops, presenting a plush riot of gilding, gas-lit crystal, and warm red velvet, like the rich lining of a jewelry case, designed to maximize the sparkle of the gems presented within. Next to the newly built opera house, the Academy looked downright shabby." Pretty soon the old New York families rented boxes at the Met, and the Academy of Music shut down. The Vanderbilts had joined the ranks of the smart set.


Elegantly dressed patrons of the Metropolitan Opera House

Billy the blatherskite was the last Vanderbilt to add to the family fortune, with subsequent generations diddling the money away. Vanderbilts built mansions, palazzos, and chateaus - exemplified by The Breakers in Rhode Island; raised horses; purchased yachts; threw lavish parties; and so on. And the men (of course) supported mistresses.


The Breakers in Rhode Island (a Vanderbilt mansion) is now a tourist attraction


A postcard of the Cornelius Vanderbilt III steam yacht, "North Star"

For example, the authors describe a surreal costume ball thrown by Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt, Billy the blatherskite's daughter-in-law.


Alva Vanderbilt (Billy the blatherskite's daughter-in-law)

In 1883, Alva was in the midst of a campaign to rule New York society, and planned a lavish party for 1200 guests in her and her husband Willie's Fifth Avenue mansion.


Alva and Willie Vanderbilt's 'petit chateau' at 660 Fifth Avenue

Cooper and Howe note, "The palatial house at 660 Fifth Avenue would be full to overflowing with hothouse orchids out of season and American Beauty roses by the thousands.....At two in the morning, an eight-course supper created by the chefs from Delmonico's was served in the gymnasium on the third floor, which had been festooned into a riotous imagination of a tropical forest....At either end of the grand apartment babbled two artificial fountains, filling the air with the plashing of freshwater under the clink of crystal and fine china and silver."

The guests arrived dressed as Joan of Arc, Christopher Columbus, Louis XVI, Queen Elizabeth I, the goddess Diana, Daniel Boone, a bumblebee, kings, queens, fairies, toreadors, gypsies, and more. Alva herself was arrayed in the regalia of a Venetian princess, complete with a fabulously expensive rope of real pearls that (purportedly) had belonged to Catherine the Great.








Some costumes worn to Alva Vanderbilt's costume ball


Alva Vanderbilt dressed as a Venetian princess for her costume ball

Alva also engaged two orchestras, and chosen guests danced themed quadrilles, including the Hobbyhorse Quadrille, the Mother Goose Quadrille, the Dresden China Quadrille, and so on.


A Quadrille Dance

The cost of Alva Vanderbilt's festive ball was a quarter of a million dollars, about $6.4 million in today's money.

Alva was also notorious for being the first New York society doyenne to divorce her cheating husband Willie Vanderbilt.


Willie Vanderbilt (Alva Vanderbilt's husband)

According to Alva, a wealthy man of the time would marry a carefully groomed society woman for sex, children and respectability. Then, when physical passion waned, the wife "was set aside, relegated to a stupid domestic sphere", while the man strayed. Thus Willie freely entertained other women, "anyone he wished, on his yacht or wherever he chose." Alva would have none of it, and - though it would result in her being (temporarily) snubbed by society - Alva took Willie to divorce court. Alva's nerve broke the logjam, and other socialites soon followed her example and divorced their husbands.

Alva was not a 'nice' woman. She admitted to mistreating slaves and forced her daughter Consuelo to marry a British aristocrat Consuelo didn't love.


Consuelo Vanderbilt (daughter of Alva and Willie)

Though Alva had her faults, she was a force of nature that went on to push for women's equality and women's suffrage.


In her later years, Alva Vanderbilt supported women's rights and women's suffrage

Cooper and Howe feature additional memorable Vanderbilts in chapters about the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 (Alfred Vanderbilt went down with the ship);


Sinking of the Lusitania


Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt went down with the Lusitania

the America's Cup yachting race of 1934 (Harold Vanderbilt competed);


America's Cup Race (1934)

;
Harold Vanderbilt competed in the 1934 America's Cup race

and the social rise and fall of the famous writer Truman Capote (Gloria Vanderbilt was a friend). Capote exposed the foibles of his high society friends in his 1965 Vanity Fair story 'La Côte Basque'....and the smart set never forgave him. The Capote chapter - with numerous famous names - is chock full of great gossip. Some of the tangential sections stray from the strict subject of the Vanderbilt family, but they're interesting and illuminating.




Writer Truman Capote


Truman Capote's 1965 story was his downfall in high society

Towards the latter part of the book, the authors write about Cooper's mother Gloria Vanderbilt, who was at the center of 'the custody battle of the century'; had a series of high profile husbands and lovers; was a model, fashion designer, and artist; lost and gained fortunes; endured sad tragedies; and was loved by her sons. Gloria's life is covered more thoroughly in Cooper's book 'The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Lost', so I'll leave it at that.




Gloria Vanderbilt

Though the Vanderbilt name still evokes visions of wealth and power, the dynasty has fallen. Cooper and Howe sum it up as follows, "The United States, a country founded on antiroyalist principles, would, only twenty years after its revolutionary burst into existence, produce the progenitor of a family [Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt] that would hold itself up as American royalty, with the titles and palaces to prove it. But their empire would last for less than a hundred years before collapsing under its own weight, destroying itself with its own pathology."

In addition to being a gossipy tale of the Vanderbilts, the narrative is brimming with entertaining anecdotes about other notable people as well as the culture of the times, ranging from early settlers of the New World to the 21nd century. The authors include a partial Vanderbilt family tree at the front of the book, which helps keep the family members straight.

This is an excellent book that I'd recommend to celebrity watchers and readers interested in American history.

Rating: 4 stars