Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach

Brooke Astor, one of America's most wealthy and philanthropic class lived a life full of challenges, concessions, and from the photographs in publications like //Town and Country// and //W// what appeared to be a fairytale-like existence. Having gracious and highly devoted friends like Annette and Oscar de la Renta only added to the mystique. The recent trade paperback publication of Meryl Gordon's meticulous hard cover account of Mrs. Astor's life extends from the very beginning all the way to the end 105 years later. Gordon sought input from the close friends, family and employees who populated her life.

//Mrs. Astor Regrets// is so well written that the reader is easily able to gaze into the homes and gardens where Mrs. Astor lived and feel the presence of the family and friends who surrounded her. Yes, there are some sadly arresting betrayals and huge character flaws revealed, most notably those of Anthony Marshall her eighty-five-year-old only child who was recently sentenced to one to three years in prison for robbing his mother's estate of millions of dollars. Anthony felt that his allowance was inadequate. All of which confirms that yes, the fabulously wealthy are very very different than the rest of us.

Reviewed by Ruta Arellano

This was a very sad, but well-written and well researched book. It was ultimately made even sadder by the outcome of Mrs. Astor's son's trial and the thought that Mrs. Astor, who was so generous to New York City, cannot be resting in peace.

I highly recommend this book. I became interested in the topic from the legal aspect but was drawn into the story from page 1 and could not put it down. Well-researched, insightful, and captivating. Reads like a novel but with well-established basis in fact.

I recently saw the story and author on the TV show 20/20, and that's what prompted me to buy the book. However, I got to page 127 and can't make myself go on. There are way too many trivial details about Astor's life, and it just isn't holding my interest. I would have preferred a much shorter background and a tighter focus on events leading up to the trial, then the trial itself.

I'm sure that the author, editor and publisher delayed publication before they released this story without its fitting conclusion. The story, of course, was the criminal trial of Brooke Astor's son for taking money illegally from her estate. This would have been a major black mark against this otherwise interesting book save that from this point on any reader can find the conclusion to the story, the verdict in the trial, in a minute on the internet.
This in not intended to be a complete biography but rather a review of the life leading up to the senility of a leading philanthropist and the subsequent care taking supervised by her only child. In pursuing this objective the author has assiduously gathered and studied relevant documents and interviewed hundreds of people linked to Mrs. Astor's life and the particulars of those last years. Happily, she does an excellent job of binding the information together in clear and interesting fashion. I have no qualms recommending it for any reader who might be interested in Society, Mrs. Astor, or the problems faced by any person or his/her caretakers when a person of any age begins to show signs of mental deterioration. From the extremely difficult problem of diagnosis which involves separating normal failure of memory in the elderly from early signs of dementia to the nearly impossible task of recognizing probable alzheimers (which involves the physical destruction of the brain) from psychic disturbance which might have psychological, social, nutritional, drug (prescription) or other similar causality. Once recognized how does a child handle the radical role reversal of becoming parent to a parent. Above all, perhaps, if there is anything of value in the estate of the person, how can he or she be protected from normal levels of greed not to speak of what tens of millions in an estate can bring out in even well-intentioned people.
One will not find answers here, since there are no good answers, but one will find it possible to sympathize both with the victim of senile disease and those who seek to act humanely.