The Astor Orphan - Alexandra Aldrich

The Astor Orphan

By Alexandra Aldrich

  • Release Date: 2013-04-16
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4
4
From 77 Ratings

Description

The Astor Orphan is an unflinching debut memoir by a direct descendant of John Jacob Astor, Alexandra Aldrich.

She brilliantly tells the story of her eccentric, fractured family; her 1980s childhood of bohemian neglect in the squalid attic of Rokeby, the family’s Hudson Valley Mansion; and her brave escape from the clan. Aldrich reaches back to the Gilded Age when the Astor legacy began to come undone, leaving the Aldrich branch of the family penniless and squabbling over what was left.

Illustrated with black-and-white photographs that bring this faded world into focus, The Astor Orphan is written with the grit of The Glass Castle and set amid the aristocratic decay of Grey Gardens.

Reviews

  • The Astor Orphan

    4
    By danalcook
    Very interesting though it felt short but it depicts the authors like when she was a child so the time frame is short .