Play Book Tag discussion

Empty Mansions – Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr
Audiobook narrated by Kimberly Farr.
4****

Subtitle: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune

From the book jacket: When Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance.

My reactions
I remember the news coverage when Ms Clark was “discovered” living in a hospital room while her several mansions stood empty. Despite being generally healthy, she had lived in hospital rooms for some twenty years. She saw virtually no one but her private duty nurse. Even her attorney and accountant were limited to phone conversations with her. She never let any of her relatives know she was in the hospital, insisting that all correspondence be directed to her Park Avenue penthouse, where a caretaker dutifully brought the mail to her hospital room. The same caretaker took phone messages and Huguette would then phone the person back from her hospital room, never letting on she wasn’t actually in her home.

I found this completely fascinating. Dedman went back in history to outline her father’s early life and the way he made his fortune. He was definitely of the “robber baron” class, ruthless in business dealings and rather crooked in his political career. Huguette was his youngest child, born of his second marriage. She and her five half-siblings shared his fortune upon his death. And it was a massive one.

This story made me so very sad for this woman who, for all her wealth, lived such a lonely and limited life. And yet, she appeared to be quite happy and content to live as she did. By many accounts she was vivacious and charming, loved painting and music, but she was intensely private and preferred the company of the many dolls she collected, apparently playing with them in the elaborate dollhouses she commissioned. Was she taken advantage of by her caretakers? Was she competent to handle her own affairs? What happened to all that money?

As I read this, I could not help but think of an elderly relative whose primary caretaker is a tenacious gate-keeper. Certainly there is no massive fortune at stake, and we DO have contact with the relative, even going out to lunch now and again, but I can see how a trusted person could take advantage of that trust for someone all alone in life.

Dedman partnered with the reclusive heiress’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell Jr, to write this book. Paul had never met his cousin, but he had many telephone conversations with her over the years, as well as some correspondence. Transcripts of their phone conversations are included in the book, as well as the text of some of the cards and letters she wrote him.

Kimberly Farr does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. As an added bonus those sections of the book where a conversation between Huguette and her cousin Paul occurred are actual tapes of the real conversations, so the listener hears Huguette’s own voice.


My full review HERE