A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler

If I thought about them at all, I dismissed them as priviledged, money grubbers and ornemental. I have read biographies of Rockefeller, The Vsnderbilts, watched documentaries, where their wives were often side notes. Huge mansions, larger than life balls, and over the top furnishings. THE GILDED AGE, a time of unprecented economic growth, the robber barons and their new money.

What is the price of going further? What might be the rewards? There's only one way to know for certain. She means to do right by all, but good behavior will only get a woman so far. One must tread carefully.Īnd what of her maddening sister-in-law, Alice? Her husband William, who's hiding a terrible betrayal? The not-entirely-unwelcome attentions of his friend Oliver Belmont, who is everything William is not? What of her own best friend, whose troubles cast a wide net?Īlva will build mansions, push boundaries, test friendships, and marry her daughter to England's most eligible duke or die trying. No obstacle puts her off for long.īut how much of ambition arises from insecurity? From despair? From refusal to play insipid games by absurd rules? -There are, however, consequences to breaking those rules. Denied abox at the Academy of Music, Alva founds The Met. She does have a knack for getting all she tries for: the costume ball-no mere amusement-wrests acceptance from doyenne Caroline Astor.

Marrying into the newly rich but socially scorned Vanderbilt clan, a union contrived by Alva's bestfriend and now-Duchess of Manchester, saved the Smiths-and elevated the Vanderbilts.įrom outside, Alva seems to have it all and want more. costume ball-a coup for the former Alva Smith, who not long before was destitute, her family's good name useless on its own. In 1883, the New York Times prints a lengthy rave of Alva Vanderbilt's Fifth Ave. A novel of a family as they rule Gilded-Age New York,

A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler