Book Report: The Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman By Christopher Ogden

Now, back in the days when I was breastfeeding, and Ivan had just been born and I was spending hours at a time in the rocker in Ivan's room, I was watching a copious amount of movies and miniseries and such. I watched John Adams (life-changing) , Rome (scandalous) , Mad Men (really good), and The History Channel Presents: Winston Churchill. Now, the Winston Churchill footage was amazing. It was all of his speeches, and the German propaganda songs (The Man with the Big Cigar), and interviews with his daughter-in-law and his grandson (Young Winston). I thoroughly enjoyed all of it, and now that I am reminiscing about it, may have to watch it again. It was inspirational, and I might have shed a few tears.

Anyway, the woman that was interviewed the most about Winston Churchill was Pamela Digby Churchill Hayard Harriman. "Who is that??" I continually asked myself. She was older, yet attractive and spoke about Winston Churchill as if she knew him best of all, better than his daughter (who was also interviewed and was rather dull). Pamela was vivacious and warm and quite pleasant. SO, I decided to look her up. She has a Wikipedia page, and it is completely enticing. For this reason, I needed to read a book about her. SHE WAS A MYSTERY TO ME, AND I HAD TO KNOW MORE. I found one book that is now out of print, but I ferreted it out of the used books on Amazon. It is called The Life of the Party: the Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman. It is written by Christopher Ogden. Ogden has also written a book about Margaret Thatcher. He doesn't have a Wikipedia page or any page at all, and I would really like to know more about him.

The whole story behind the book is remarkable. He and Pamela entered into a legal agreement whereby Ogden would write her biography. As he began to dig up dirt, she balked at the agreement and they had a legal/financial squabble that ended in another agreement which was that he would write the book with no help from her. He interviewed 200 people that had known her when and learned much more than anyone wanted him to. Overall, everyone he talked to seemed to genuinely dislike her very much. Ogden himself seemed to hate her as well. Maybe the only biography that I have ever read where the author was absolutely hateful about his subject.

Anyway, to sum up. Pamela Digby was an English country aristocrat with no title and only a small annuity who moved to London and had a random date with Winston Churchill's son Randolph. Randolph was a well-known drunk and abuser and deeply in debt like the rest of the Churchills. He had proposed to several women before (all who said no), as he was desperate to procreate before going off to war (though Winston Sr. would never really let him go anywhere dangerous as he was the only son).

He proposed to Pamela and based on the importance of his father, she said yes. She married Randolph, became pregnant, and left Randolph and sent their son (Young Winston) off to be raised in the country until he was 5ish, at which time she passed him off to relatives, until he was old enough to go to boarding school where he stayed until he graduated. The neglect was the most disturbing aspect of the book.

Anyway, Pamela parlayed her new Churchill last name and the neglected son into meetings and relationships with famous and wealthy men. Among them were:

• Averell Harriman
• Edward R. Murrow (amazing broadcast journalist)
• Jock Whitney
• Aly Khan (later married Rita Hayworth)
• Baron Elie de Rothschild
• An Agnelli Heir (Fiat)
• Stavros Niarchos
• Leland Hayward (who became her second husband)
• Averell Harriman again (who became her third husband)

All of these men were married and Pamela was so desperate to be married and spending so wildly that she converted to Catholicism in a failed attempt to convince the Agnelle heir to marry her. She seemed to spend most of her life alone between relationships and hiding from wives, she developed cancer from an STD and a myriad of other tragic health issues related to what you would think.

She seemed to think that each man would divorce his wife for her but it never worked out until she met the recently widowed Leland Hayward when she was in her forties. To her surprise, Hayward was in an unfortunate way financially and when he died, she had nothing but a house, which could not maintain her lifestyle. In a strange turn of events, she stayed with Frank Sinatra (though not romantically) for a while after she was widowed and then contacted Averell Harriman after his wife died. This time, he married her within months. She was fifty-ish, and he was eighty-ish.

This marriage made her HUGELY wealthy. Averell left everything to Pamela, something close to a net of a billion dollars. This included several homes, a jet, an art collection that was just stunning. He pretty much left his children cold. It was an amazing coup, though she didn't really get her hands on any of it until Averell died when Pamela was 65 or 70.

For whatever reason, though she was a British citizen and typically a quite conservative one, in the vein of Winston Churchill, she became a HUGE supporter of the democratic party. She was influential in getting Bill Clinton elected, and he rewarded her with an ambassadorship to France. Which is where she lived, in the embassy, until she died after swimming laps at the Paris Ritz-Carlton.

To sum up, a fascinating but really terrible person. A quote from a "friend" is as follows: "She is totally self-centered and narcissistic." So, WOW. WOW. Nobody likes her, but she got what she wanted in the end. COMPLETELY. It was a quick read, some of the Democratic party minutia got a little dull in the end, but just really interesting and I felt I learned a lot about the culture of London during World War II.

On to a fiction book: The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Book Report: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It is what our book club is reading this month and I whipped through it in a very few days. It is a brief epistolary novel, which means that it is a book of letters. The only book of letters I every thoroughly enjoyed was Dangerous Liasons, though it was rather disturbing. Brahm Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are also books of letters, and I have never finished either of them. Though this great book of letters has convinced me to give them another try.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is such an interesting book that tells the World War II story of the German occupied isle of Guernsey, a small island between the coasts of England and France. The story is a fictional account of an author (based in London) who has an idea to write the story of the inhabitants of the island and their experiences during the war. These experiences were both happy and sad: their children were evacuated to England for safety, some of their own were sent to concentration camps, they dealt with starvation and strange relationships with their German occupiers.

Anyway, in a desperate attempt to hide a smuggled pig they roasted for dinner, a group of Guernsey friends formed a literary society for reading. They all banded together and encouraged each other to read and eventually reached out across the ocean to an author whose name was randomly in a book jacket and the letter writing begins. There are both telegrams and letters, love stories and stories of friendship, deaths and new lives. The letters are well written and the characters are varied. It is a great book and an easy read. I strongly encourage it. I an now onto my next read, The Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Hayward Harriman Churchill.

Book Report: Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln & Charles Darwin by David R. Contosta

So, I have just finished reading Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. It is not the best book I have ever read, but I learned one very important piece of information that I will impart to you. When someone writes a comparison novel about your life, do not let them compare you to Abraham Lincoln. You will never measure up, friends. Abraham Lincoln eclipses us all.

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day, which was the focal point of David R. Contosta's book. Abraham Lincoln was born into abject poverty, his mother died early, his father was relatively shiftless. His father hired him out to the neighbors to work. He had ONE YEAR of formal education. ONE YEAR. He went on to read for the law, become a politician, and president. Three of his four children died (one after his own death), he wrote all his own speeches, he is the only one of our presidents who was actually involved in a battle while he was president. He made hard decisions and acted on them. He grieved for the losses of our country in the Civil War and spoke openly to the country about the the hard issues. His fatal flaw seemed to be his wife. Mary Todd was bipolar as far as I can tell. She chased Lincoln into the street with a knife when they lived in Springfield. Her manic spending sprees forced Lincoln to work desperately until he became president and Mary Todd was able to hide her spending, though it never stopped until Robert Todd committed her to an asylum several years after the death of Lincoln.

So while reading Contosta's book, you are bowled over by the accomplishments of Lincoln. Then you have Darwin, who begs the title Little Lord Fauntleroy, if ever anyone did. He was raised by his very wealthy father to be a Doctor, but Darwin wasn't really interested in that. He then studied for the clergy (where, interestingly, he pronounced that "every word of the Bible was the literal truth"). He next decided to head out on a five year voyage on the HMS Beagle, where he visited the Galapagos and had his evolutionary epiphany. After he arrived home, his father bought him a place in London, which he found too noisy, so his father bought and renovated a home for him in the country. He even made the decision to move the road which traveled by his home two miles away so as not to disturb him. When asked to attend a debate, awards ceremony, anything involving public recognition of his work, Darwin stayed at home taking sunlamp treatments. He did not engage in ANY conflict. I am not knocking Darwin's wealth, the sons of many wealthy men accomplish far less. I am knocking the misfortune of comparing his life and lifestyle to Lincoln. None of us is as unfortunate as Lincoln. That breed of misfortune has become extinct, I am afraid. When Lincoln and Darwin are compared, however, Darwin comes off as severely lacking. Its not really his fault, its just that Lincoln is so much better.

Another thing that irritated me about Darwin, (who is not a man to be sneezed at, until he is compared with Lincoln) is that when he was formulating his evolutionary thesis he was so nervous that he would lay in bed for days vomiting while his wife (a winner!!!) read soothing poetry to him and had their two nannies keep their children very quiet. His wife was a winner. She was Darwin's first cousin and was a quiet refined soul. She bore ten children to Darwin, one who died of TB and another who died quite young and was thought to have Down's Syndrome. Emma Wedgewood (yes, those Wedgewoods) Darwin ran an efficient and quiet household that consisted of ten servants. Darwin's valet was his closest friend and when Darwin took breaks from writing, they played billiards together. Sometimes Darwin went to stay at a beach spa when he was particularly troubled about his work. Darwin is just such a foil to Lincoln that I feel that Contosta made a poor choice.

I have tried to think of better comparisons. Here are a few: Lincoln/ Churchill, Lincoln/ Ghandi, Lincoln/ Napoleon, Darwin/Alexander Fleming, Darwin/Galileo, Darwin/Hawking.

These are all great men in their own right, but Lincoln, LINCOLN!!!!!

Interesting facts that I learned from this book that will emerge in my small talk party conversations:

1) The Scopes trial was completely staged. Scopes didn't even teach science and never taught evolution. It was just to bring publicity to Dayton.

2) Abraham Lincoln often slept at his law office to get away from his wife

3) The Lincoln's were not into disciplining their children.

4) Darwin never said we came from apes. He only insinuated a common ancestor.

Contosta's book was interesting, but it read like a dissertation that became publishable. Exciting, I bought the book used from Amazon, and when I opened it to begin reading, 7 dollars fell out. YAY!!!! I love cash. Pictures I am posting are of Lincoln and Darwin's birth places and their wives. I am starting on The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Society. If you want to know more about Lincoln in a fun trivia kind of way, I recommend Assassination Vacation by Sara Vowel. It was so fun, and so positive, and I felt like I knew the characters well.

Book Report: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

So, if you have read anything since Freshman literature in college, everyone is trying to get you to read this book. It is ALL THE TALK.

The story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi from the years 1961-1964. It centers around the town's women and their "help" or the black women that work for too little money as their maids. The political/ social times are changing, but are presented only peripherally in the book, which leaves the reader with the impression that Jackson, Mississippi is and enclave within a country.

The story is told from the point of view of three women: two black maids, Abilene and Minny, and one young white woman who desperately wants to be writer. The young white woman, Skeeter, is given some advice from an editor in New York that she should submit some work on a controversial topic. Thereby gaining attention and maybe changing society in some way.

Though the women she will begin to write about are her closest childhood friends, Skeeter seizes on the opportunity to secretly interview their maids and find out how The Help is treated. Much secrecy ensues and difficult lives are revealed. Pillars of the community are found to treat their maids in a less than human fashion. Jackson, Mississippi finds itself exposed.

I thought that this book was incredibly readable, and I read it almost as fast as I read One Fifth Avenue. My college roommate pointed out that Kathryn Stockett had done a a great job of writing women with poor grammar (or maybe grammar colloquial to that time and station) as both intelligent and wise. This is abundantly correct. Kathryn Stockett also wrote about Southern heat in such a way that made you feel it. I felt sticky with sweat most of the book.

Overall though, I would describe it as the best book club book I have ever read. It encourages us to think broadly and be aware of all of society's cogs. The author is from Jackson and had a close relationship with her "help" as a child. She moved to New York to become a writer, so she clearly has the authority and intimate knowledge of the subject matter. I would thoroughly recommend reading it, though I feel The Help suffered in my estimation so soon after reading Marilynne Robinson's Home.

Book Report: One Fifth Avenue: Candace Bushnell Plays Checkers

OK, so I just finished reading One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell. I will be honest and tell you that it is one of the fastest reads EVER. It reads like a Tom Wolfe novel, IF, Tom Wolfe stopped playing chess and started playing checkers. The same type of characters whose lives intersect, and the characters that you think are simple have a razor's edge of sharpness to them. The difference is that the vocabulary, the metaphors, and the depth of each character are not there.

Candace Bushnell is of course a woman, and the men she writes are foolish or arrogant and cruel; two of them can only be described as whipped. The women, however, might be just as bad or worse. Lola Fabrikant, the desperate to be on a reality show and/or marry an older wealthy man, character is oh so hatable. She is 22 and presents one of the worst portrayals of American youth that I have seen in print. I spent the whole novel reading about her, feeling old yet both morally and mentally superior. Which is the same way I think Candace Bushnell felt writing about her. I feel like Lola probably looks like Audrina Partridge but with larger lips.

The book really centers around the lives of 5 women: Lola, a smart older columnist, a middle-aged middle-class and bitter about it woman, a new-money society climber, and a 40ish still single actress. There are 5 men who rotate about the heroines in a peripheral sort of way. Each woman lives in the elite building One Fifth Avenue.

I would not say that there are any memorable lines in the book. The story is great and consistent throughout. I got the feeling from some of the bitterness of the characters, however, that Candace Bushnell is suspicious of New York's youth and frustrated with their ignorance of the things that made New York great; the old families, the restaurants, the galas. Her youth is portrayed as demanding, always wanting something for nothing, and disdainful of the accomplishments of anyone over 30. I doubt that this is true of all New York youth.

While it was mentioned that the "new-money social climber" figure went to a great college and seems to have a good heart and natural beauty, business smarts and tennis acumen, it is only mentioned. After the mention, she is just the new money social climber. Her good attributes are not further developed.

The Columnist, the Actress, and the middle-class, middle-aged bitter woman are all well developed, and I read this within the span of 30 hours, which is not too shabby for 430 pages. (I did have a small bout with insomnia after drinking tea too late at night, which helped.)

Anyway, to sum up, this is the best beach read EVER. If you buy it, you will pass it around to all of your friends and they will all read it, because it is quite girl friendly for all.

Book Report: The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

OK, I have been reading away like a woman possessed on this first novel (I believe) by Brunonia Barry. Totally interesting name, am I right? The author's name I mean. Throughout my reading of the book, I was completely distracted by wondering from whence the name Brunonia came. Is that a family name? Does it mean something? It is apparently the latin name for some sort of blue flower. Is it the feminized form of Bruno?

Anyway, my church has a book group that meets once a month on Tuesdays. So, I finished my Harry Potter reread and rushed out to buy The Lace Reader. Now, I don't know if it is clear, but I tried to photograph it. On the back of the book the top description says "ASTONISHING, BEWITCHING, UNFORGETTABLE....". Hmmmm, I feel that the ........ would be filled in with "if the only other thing you have ever read is the Webster's Dictionary and the instruction manual for your refrigerator".

Astonishing, no, I mean that doesn't describe the book at all. Bewitching, well there are some witches that aren't really witches, and it does take place in Salem. Unforgettable, well I am pretty sure that I will at least never forget the name Brunonia. Also, there is a dog in the book named Byzantium, which is the least of all the catchy pet names I have ever heard. It is just a large mouthful to yell out the door at a mangy wild golden retriever (as is the dog in the book), but that is a matter of opinion and in no way reflective upon the story.

The story takes place in Salem and opens with a niece getting word that her Great-Aunt Eva has disappeared. The niece, whose name is Sophya, but goes by Towner, is in her 30s and has been plagued by mental illness that seemed to stem from the suicide of her twin at age 13.

In the flashbacks, her twin Lyndley, is being raised away from her by a reticent Aunt and her abusive husband. When the Aunt goes missing, Towner must come home and deal with all the childhood mysteries and mental breakdowns that have plagued her life and her strange family. All the women in the family read futures in lace, and so that is tied up in the book as well. The ending is quite surprising, but a lot of the book does not seem explained well, and it all sort of jumbles only to be unbelievably untangled in the end.

It is a quick read, and it makes Salem sound like an interesting town to visit. It put me in a mind to visit on Halloween when they do re-enactions of the witch trials. It was an easy read, but the idea of the lace reading did not tie in well somehow, and I didn't really love any of the characters. There is a tough cop with a gentle caretaker spirit that comes across well. I do sort of like the name Towner. Anyway, while not my favorite, I enjoyed reading it. I learned a new word chinoiserie which is a type chinese-esque furniture popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Most Unfortunately, all that, I did not get to go to book club as I had two other meetings this week and just couldn't be out three nights in a row. Oh well, we'll see what they are reading next month.

Book Report: Harry Potter book 6: The Reread

OK, last night I finished my Harry Potter book 6 reread. I enjoyed it maybe as much as the first time, except that I already knew the ending. I had forgotten all about the Horcruxes. I had also forgotten the fact that when Dumbledore and Harry find the all important third Horcrux, it is a decoy Horcrux, meaning that Harry will spend all of book 7 attempting to find and destroy the remaining four fragments of Voldemort's soul. Also, I had forgotten that it is book 6 where Harry and Ginny get together, though I did remember that it appears that Ron and Hermione are an item by the end of the book. Grawp made a reappearance at Dumbledore's funeral, as does Madame Maxim, whom I had missed. As per usual, I am amazed by J.K. Rowling's ability to write more maturely for her maturing audience with each book.

Also, Dumbledore has some great lines in this book!! For instance: "I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment," Dumbledore said to Uncle Vernon, "but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness."

What a great read after plodding away at John Adams for so long. If you haven't read the Harry Potters yet, you need to get started, if only so that you will not be set apart from a generation of children for whom Dumbledore has been a zeitgeist and an inspiration to read, and Harry has been an example of standing for right irregardless of adversity.