by Meryl Gordon
First published 2014
Huguette Clark commanded New York society in the 1920s. The copper fortune heiress lived in a 121-room mansion and attended royal coronations. At twenty-two, worth $50 million, she married a Princeton graduate and family friend. The marriage collapsed within two years. Failed romances followed. Then Clark retreated from the world entirely. She moved into isolation with her mother before becoming a hermit in her Central Park apartment. She spent decades eating crackers and watching cartoons with only servants nearby. Her vast wealth attracted predators in her final years. Hospitals admitted the healthy woman repeatedly to collect fees. Manipulative associates circled her fortune. Meryl Gordon investigates what transformed a vibrant socialite into a modern Miss Havisham. She explores the psychological toll of extreme wealth and the vulnerability that accompanies isolation. The book reveals how Clark's gilded world became her prison.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator, vulnerable-protagonist
Setting: Central Park, New York
Period: 1920s
400 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing
Content warnings: abuse, mental-illness