![]() 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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