by Renée Rosen
Under Helen Gurley Brown’s leadership, Cosmopolitan became a groundbreaking magazine for women and inspired many copycat publications. Were you a Cosmo reader? And if so, what do you remember most about that magazine? What other magazines did you read growing up?
Can you define today’s Cosmo Girl? How has she evolved through the years?
When it comes to iconic female magazine editors, the two biggest names are probably Helen Gurley Brown and Anna Wintour. How do you think these two women are similar? How are they different?
In the book, Alice looks to both Helen Gurley Brown and Elaine Sloan as role models and mentors. How important do you think it was for a young woman back then to have that kind of guidance? And do you think it’s still important in today’s world?
In today’s digital age we’ve seen the decline of physical magazines. How do you feel about publications moving from newsstands to the Internet? Do you miss reading them physically?
If you’d been put in Ali’s position, would you have told Helen that members of the Hearst staff were sabotaging her? How do you think you would have handled that sort of predicament?
What prominent themes can you find in Park Avenue Summer? Do you think any of them are still relevant in today’s world?
Alice, like so many people throughout history, moved to New York City to pursue her dream. Certainly, there are easier and more affordable places to live and yet Manhattan’s draw proves irresistible to some. Why do you think that is?
How did you feel about the ending of the book and were you surprised to learn where Ali ended up?
FURTHER READING:
ON RENÉE ROSEN’S BOOKSHELF
GREAT HISTORICAL FICTION
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O’Connor McNees
The One Man by Andrew Gross
American Princess by Stephanie Marie Thornton
MY ALL-TIME FAVORITES
It’s rare that I’ll reread a book. However, certain books, like the ones below, are just so special that I’ve gone back and reread them at least three times. Or more.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Last to Go by Rand Richards Cooper
Anywhere but Here by Mona Simpson
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
Monkeys by Susan Minot
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Read on for an early look at Renée Rosen’s upcoming novel
THE SOCIAL GRACES
in which Mrs. Astor and Alva Vanderbilt vie for control of New York society during the Gilded Age.
NEW YORK CITY
1872
Caroline Astor pushed aside the heavy velvet draperies and watched the snow gusting outside, a skim of ice frosting the bottom of the windowpane. She considered feigning a sore throat or possibly a fever, looking for any excuse to forgo the Easton Ball. It was a miserable, blustery night, but more than that, rumors about her husband, William Backhouse Astor Jr., had been working their way from Washington Square up to the Thirties along Fifth Avenue. William denied having anything to do with that other woman, but when she’d confronted him in the drawing room earlier that day, when their eyes met, piercing through the shroud of hearsay, they both knew it was true. Her only consolation was that he had cared enough to lie.
Her heart was clenched tight as a fist, but the hour was growing late and it was time to get ready. Not attending the ball wasn’t an option, as her absence would only fuel more talk. This was a situation that needed to be faced head-on.
Caroline, who moved slowly, as if she carried the weight of her Dutch ancestors on her back, stepped away from the window and entered her dressing room. Her maid was inside, waiting to help with her evening toilet. Caroline Astor owned so many gowns and accessories she would not have known where to look for anything without assistance. Organizing and maintaining her dressing room was one of her maid’s primary responsibilities. Caroline’s gowns were stored according to occasion: morning gowns kept separate from the afternoon gowns, tea gowns and the evening gowns. Her riding habits and swimming costumes were in an armoire next to another oversized cedar closet devoted to her furs and opera coats. Her maid also kept a log of what items had been worn to what events. This ensured that Caroline would never appear in the same garment twice, a dire faux pas.
Ladies of true gentility never dressed in the height of fashion, and so, that night Caroline opted for a simple yet sophisticated royal blue Worth gown, which her maid retrieved from a special ball gown closet, heavily scented with rose petal sachets. At first glance all Caroline saw in that closet were endless racks of garment bags. But inside those bags, the gowns were stuffed with the tissue paper they’d been packed in to protect the fabrics and intricate detailing prior to making their journey from Paris. Each one hung full and without a single wrinkle.
Her shoes, jewelry, gloves and hats were stored in a second room. Caroline’s maid kept all the ostrich and osprey feathers faced out on the hats designed for Caroline by Madame Guerin and Madame Herbault each season when she visited Paris. Her hats alone occupied an entire wall adjacent to her veils and bonnets, created by other milliners who had also designed for Queen Victoria.
When her maid slid the giant pocket door open to the accessory room, Caroline saw her eleven-year-old daughter, Carrie, sitting at the dressing table, ropes of pearls about her neck, the excess strands pooling in her lap.
“Mama, look!” The girl smiled at her through the looking glass. “I’m getting ready for the ball!”
“Oh, my precious, you’ll be fast asleep when the ball begins.” Caroline went to her daughter’s side, squeezing her tiny shoulders, watching both their faces framed in the mirror. Those dark brown eyes; the rich chestnut curls; soft, fine features; a perfectly straight, delicate nose. Caroline was forever grateful that the girl took after her father, as Caroline had unfortunately inherited her grandfather’s bulbous nose.
Unlike Caroline’s own mother, who had fawned over her elder sisters, Caroline swore she’d never play favorites. She fiercely loved all five of her children, and yet, of her four daughters, she had to admit that Carrie, her youngest and her namesake, was the closest to her heart. A fanciful child, like she herself had been, Carrie gave herself over to books and daydreaming. Caroline recognized that hopeful lift in her daughter’s voice, that glimmer in her eyes, and oh how she wished she could spare her daughter from the vicissitudes of life that could wear down even the greatest optimists. Caroline knew that firsthand.
“Soon, my love,” she said, unclasping the various strands of pearls from around Carrie’s neck and handing them off to her maid. “Soon you’ll be old enough to attend as many balls as you’d like.”
After her maid had fastened a simple strand of diamonds about Caroline’s neck, little Carrie brought her hands to her mouth and squealed. “Oh, Mama, you look so beautiful.”
If only the rest of the world saw us through the innocent, loving eyes of a child. “No, my dear,” Caroline said. “You—you are the most beautiful of all, and you need your beauty rest. Now come give Mama a hug good night.” She embraced her daughter, peppered her forehead with kisses and gestured for her maid to call for the girl’s nanny.
When Carrie left the room, she took Caroline’s joy with her. She sat at her dressing table, with her shoulders gone slack, tilting her chin, observing how pallid her skin had become. The lines around her eyes and mouth had grown deeper, her features had turned harder. She was tired. Exhausted really. Her husband’s roving eye, coupled with raising five children, had aged her beyond her forty-two years.
Oh pishposh, she mustn’t fee
l sorry for herself. If her mother were there, she would have stood behind Caroline, pulling her shoulders back to proud, reminding her that she was Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor and that New York belonged to her. Just as her family had built the town house she called home, so too had her ancestors built this city. They were Knickerbockers. They’d molded and shaped New York, based upon customs and traditions handed down from one generation to the next, and that would not stop with Caroline. She would see to it that her children carried on just as she had.
There was a time when Caroline knew everyone in New York, certainly everyone worth knowing. There were no strangers within her circles, and when she attended the Academy of Music, a dinner party or ball, she was among friends and people who valued refinement and decorum. But all that changed after the War Between the States, and New York was overrun by the nouveaux riches: those individuals and families who had come into enormous wealth after the war and through the most unscrupulous means. They had schemed and swindled their way up the ranks, flaunting their money in the most obscene ways.
Caroline could spot new money a mile away. The women with their tiaras and coronets, their dresses so weighted down with spangles and jeweled beading they could barely move. They even wore diamonds in the afternoon. The men were just as bad, all reeking of newly minted steel, oil and railroad money. Families like the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts were determined to buy their way into society, and it was her duty to keep them out. All the money in the world couldn’t buy breeding, and that was the one thing the Knickerbockers valued above all else.
Caroline watched in the mirror while her maid styled her hair. It had begun to thin over the past year, which concerned her. She’d found long, dark strands in the basin, on the white marbled floor, across her satin pillowcases. Her maid hadn’t mentioned it, but as the weeks and months passed, Caroline had become aware of the pale, balding spot, the size of a coin, on the crown of her head. Though the hats camouflaged the situation, in the end, the only remedy was a wig. Or wigs, as it turned out, for now there was a separate closet that housed the various styles in varying shades of browns and blacks. The fragile condition of Caroline’s hair and her need for the wigs was something that she and her maid addressed without ever discussing it outright.
Staring into the looking glass, Caroline knew that others saw her as a woman of strong stature, tall and sturdy. It was presumed that she was rugged and resilient, and socially she was often mistaken for being aloof and haughty. No one would have suspected the tenderhearted, insecure woman who lurked within.
* * *
• • •
The Easton Ball was called for eleven o’clock that evening, as was the custom. Among the two hundred and fifty guests were Mrs. Easton’s niece, Alva Smith, and her fiancé, William Kissam Vanderbilt.
Alva had been anticipating and preparing for this night for weeks. It was to be her first true taste of New York society. Her chance to regain the position her family had fallen so far from during the war. To rejoin the world she had been born into, the one her mother had always intended for her to belong to. And oh how she missed her mother, especially at times like this. Her grief, it never really ended, leaving a bittersweet tinge on Alva’s every triumph and happiness.
According to her aunt Penelope, it was important that Alva make a favorable impression on the most influential matriarchs. Doing so would help pave the way for Alva to get past the stalwart society gatekeepers: Mrs. Astor and Mr. Ward McAllister. Alva was determined to win them over. She had memorized a list of names, their daughters’ and sons’ names, too. Alone in the tiny bedroom she shared with her sisters, Alva had practiced her curtsy and rehearsed her how-do-you-dos while experimenting with hairstyles that might tame her wild red curls. Now the big event had arrived and it was no time to give in to nervous jitters. She was as ready as she’d ever be and she simply had no option but to shine.
Her pale blue moiré gown had been a gift from her aunt, along with the sapphire sautoir necklace. Alva felt all eyes upon her as she made her way through the Easton mansion with Willie K. Vanderbilt on her arm. The two of them wandered down the dark paneled hallway, softly lit by the flames flickering inside the Baccarat crystal wall sconces. They passed the grand staircase, the salon to the left, the music room to the right and the various alcoves that led to the servants’ quarters. Stopping every now and again, they admired the paintings and family portraits hanging in their heavy gilded frames. Unaware of the whispering going on about her, Alva was thrilled to mingle among the Smart Set, acting as if it were nothing short of miraculous that she—a poor relation—had been invited to the ball at all.
Originally from Mobile, Alabama, Alva Smith and her family had moved to New York City by way of Paris, from which they had fled when the war broke out. Her father, once a successful cotton plantation owner, had proceeded to squander the family fortune, which, Alva believed, had driven her mother to an early grave. After her mother’s passing three years ago, when Alva was just sixteen, her aunt Penelope had stepped in to do what she could to help the family recapture their social status. Alva’s two sisters had succumbed to their circumstances. They’d let it break them and hadn’t the strength to do what was needed to restore the family’s good name. But with Alva, it was just the opposite. Adversity fueled her drive. It was up to her to reinstate them all, and she would. It was the very thing she felt most passionate about, something she felt she owed her late mother.
Alva and Willie K. continued to make their way through the Easton mansion. Already her aunt had made several important introductions to her most notable guests, including Mrs. James Roosevelt, Mrs. August Belmont and Miss Kate Strong, a young woman with a diamond cat brooch who went by the nickname Puss.
When Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, or Mamie as they called her, eyed Alva, a doeskin-gloved finger poised at her chin, she said, “Smith, Smith . . . Any relation to Mr. James Clinch Smith?”
“No relation,” Alva replied, “but my maternal grandfather was Robert Desha, the United States representative.” She beamed. But Mamie’s pinched lips told Alva that Mrs. Fish hadn’t appreciated being upstaged, so Alva reverted to a Southern trick her mother had taught her: good old-fashion flattery. “May I just say, Mrs. Fish, that yours is one of the loveliest gowns I’ve seen here tonight? Truly, there’s not another woman here who begins to compare.”
She’d sent Mrs. Fish happily on her way and Alva thought she’d handled herself rather well, pleased with her performance; striking just the right balance of graciousness and smarts.
The only two she’d yet to meet were the grande dame, Mrs. William Astor, and her compeer, Mr. Ward McAllister. Alva was on the lookout for them as she and Willie K. entered the ballroom. It was filled with couples waltzing, and Alva observed that the gentlemen all wore black cutaways, waistcoats and white bow ties, as if they were in uniform. The women’s gowns, however, were each a display of distinction. While some of the older society matrons wore rather simple dresses—nothing more than your basic satins, velvets and silks—other women sparkled, their bodices strewn with intricate beading and gemstones. Each gown was more magnificent than the last. Alva traced her fingertips over the plain bodice of her dress, thinking that one day soon, after she was married, money would no longer be an issue and she would never again be envious of another woman’s gown.
As the orchestra played the opening notes of “The Blue Danube,” Willie K. led Alva onto the dance floor. “Oh Willie K., you do dance divinely.” She laughed, fanning herself with great exaggeration, as if on the verge of fainting. In response he pulled her toward him, holding her a tad bit closer than was considered proper. She and Willie K. were a playful couple in general and especially so on the dance floor, both of them animated and light on their feet. They laughed, not a care in the world, their bodies dipping and turning as he raised his gloved hand in hers and twirled her once, then once again, keeping perfect time with the music. Alva was in her glory, waltzi
ng with William Kissam Vanderbilt and eager to take her place among New York’s elite. She was sure that her betrothed’s family money would unlock society’s gilded doors and welcome them into New York’s Smart Set.
Photo by Charles Osgood Photography
Renée Rosen is the author of Windy City Blues, White Collar Girl, What the Lady Wants and Dollface, as well as the young adult novel Every Crooked Pot.
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