Chapter 175: In the Rooms Where it Happened

So many fun things in our line of work, and few can bring more delight than being transported in place and time by means of the essential and never easy task of reporting. We get to see and hear things that may not be any of our business and then return to our desks and weave what we’ve learned into a story.

I am not necessarily speaking of the I-cannot-believe-this-is-happening discovery that you have somehow been invited into a Signal chat among those tasked with safeguarding the nation’s security as they sort out the pros, cons and logistics of bombing Yemen.

Rather, I am speaking of the everyday work so many of us do -- either in immersing ourselves in the lives of the people we write about, or in reconstructing what has already happened to them.

There are some who are uncomfortable with reconstruction as a reporting tool, and with respect, I could not disagree more. It is a skill long employed by historians to great effect and, in recent decades, by journalists who appreciate and accept that the only way to do this work well and honorably – read: no making up stuff for dramatic effect ever; a cardinal sin for which there is no path to redemption – is through the long, slow, and exacting business of gathering a fact at a time. Only then can you look back at what you’ve learned, see how you’ve distilled it on the page, and feel that you’ve succeeded in taking readers there, too.

My friend Meryl Gordon is a terrific practitioner of this journalistic art. The director of New York University’s magazine program, Meryl has turned her eye in recent years to a world few of us will ever see, but judging by the critical and commercial success of her books, is the stuff of endless curiosity: the inner sanctums and not always happy lives of women of wealth, privilege, many homes, and a lot of friends in powerful places.

She began in 2008, with her book, Mrs. Astor Regrets, the story of New York socialite Brooke Astor, a term no longer in great use – but then its subject was 100 years old as the story begins. Suffice it to say that this was a woman who knew everyone and whom everyone felt it wise to know, if only for the prospect of being ushered into a certain rarified and aging New York social world. The cover photo of Mrs. Astor shows her in a fur coat holding a dog. You take my point.

Oh, yes, the subtitle: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach

Think of how this would appear in search. Betrayals. Hidden. Reproach.

Sold.

Here is Meryl’s account of the Astor demimonde as its doyenne approached the century mark: “In the kingdom of Astor, there was a flurry of pre-hundredth birthday-party activity in the sixteenth-floor aerie at 778 Park Avenue where Mrs. Astor had entertained royalty, a president named Reagan, first ladies from Jacqueline Onassis to Lady Bird Johnson to Nancy Reagan, and a succession of mayors and governors. The fourteen-room apartment had been decorated by Sister Parish with Albert Hadley and updated by Mark Hampton. Visitors often admired the pearl-inlaid black wooden Chinese cabinet in the imposing entrance hall. Off to the right was Mrs. Astor’s famous red-lacquered library, which housed Vincent Astor’s collection of leather-bound first editions and showcased his widow’s favorite and most valuable painting, Childe Hassam’s Flags Fifth Avenue, which hung over the eighteenth-century French marble fireplace.”

You don’t necessarily need a glossary to appreciate that this is unlike your home and the homes of pretty much everyone you have known and will ever know. The details are spot on; just enough to seal the idea but not so many that it might slow the pace. You need to see it and feel it to appreciate what is to come: yes, betrayal.

Brooke Astor invited 100 people to her 100th birthday party. To reconstruct the evening, Meryl interviewed 50 of them. I asked her what drew her to these women and their stories.

“My introduction to the world of society came via reading the Suzy syndicated column in my hometown newspaper in Rochester, N.Y. It was fun to learn about this glamorous jet-setting world, so far from my own Jewish middle class life.

“When I moved to Manhattan in 1983, my husband and I subscribed to the New York Post and New York Daily News, which both had society columns, as well as the New York Times. Then a friend gave me a subscription to the then-weekly publication W, which chronicled the social and fashion world.

“I became addicted to reading about New York’s famous socialites, since you could find out so much – from their mishaps and husbands’ affairs to what they were doing virtually every day. Once I began to write for New York Magazine, assigned to cover the city’s influentials, I met several of these women at events and interviewed them for stories.

“By the time New York assigned me a story about the famous social world denizen Brooke Astor and her family scandal – her grandson had sued his father, charging him with emotionally and financially abusing Brooke – I had an old-fashioned Rolodex with numerous contacts for Upper Eastsiders.

“That turned into my first book, and it was social anthropology – wandering Park Avenue living rooms, learning about the rituals and mores of old-line wealth. I covered the Astor trial for Vanity Fair, and my book became a New York Times bestseller.

“In journalism and publishing, if you do something well, you are often asked to do it again and again. I’ve now written four biographies of very wealthy women, often involved with a bit of scandal. My subjects were born in the 1882 to 1910 range, a time when women had few opportunities. What I found engaging was chronicling these women’s efforts to be relevant and make their mark in the world.

“Brooke Astor was a philanthropist who used her inheritance from husband Vincent Astor, and role as chair of his foundation, to fund Manhattan museums, libraries and charities. Huguette Clark, the reclusive daughter of a copper robber baron, sought artistic achievement as a painter. Bunny Mellon, the best friend of Jackie Kennedy, designed the White House Rose Garden for President Kennedy, and with her husband Paul Mellon, obsessively collected millions of dollars of artwork, donated to the National Gallery of Art.

“And Perle Mesta, the subject of my new biography – The Woman Who Knew Everyone – was a feminist who lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment and women’s opportunities. She brought Republicans and Democrats together at her parties, and served as one of the first female foreign emissaries, as the State Department’s minister to Luxembourg.

“My research combined extensive interviews for the first three books – those women had all died relatively recently -- with archival research for the Perle Mesta book, since she died in 1975. It is so rewarding to turn up a surprising document – such as riveting accounts of Perle Mesta’s life at the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City -- or an unexpected insight in an interview.

“Thanks to my reporting on this monied world, I am keenly aware that all of us struggle with identity, family problems and a desire to matter. I (mostly) no longer envy their millions. Money eases life, but doesn’t protect you from pain. I came away with great admiration for my subjects, who put such talent and effort into creating useful and meaningful lives.”

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