![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() sneeze, but to his credit he recognizes something-call it originality, single-mindedness, intelligence-that will vault his future heirs, if not his boorish grandpa, into the best society. The genuine blossoms on Alva’s dress make W.K. His most vexing problem is that Vanderbilt money is too new, barring his family from being “received” in Old Knickerbocker circles. Vanderbilt, grandson of the richest robber baron in America, is a horseman and yachting enthusiast (who, according to Fowler’s characterization, is not the brightest skipper in the fleet and a compulsive philanderer to boot). Taking cues from her vivacious pal Consuelo Yznaga (a half-Cuban sugar-cane heiress soon to be married to an English duke), Alva dons an ebony ball gown garnished with goldenrod blossoms to catch the eye of an heir. As the novel opens, 21-year-old Alva and her sisters, the children of formerly prosperous parents-all unmarried despite summers in Newport and Europe-are caring for their invalid widower father, facing bankruptcy and the unhappy prospect of letting out rooms. Portrait of the Gilded Age socialite and suffragist who famously followed her own advice: “First marry for money, then marry for love.”ĭoyenne and co-designer of palatial mansions in Manhattan, Long Island, and Newport, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was born Alva Smith in Mobile, Alabama-half a century before the heroine of Fowler’s previous novel, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013). ![]()
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