Fowler has a gift for humanising women we might have heard of but know little about, making them so real you feel loyal to them. She did it first in the excellent Z, a novel about Zelda Fitzgerald, and again here, with Alva Vanderbilt.
The Vanderbilt name summons images of unimaginable riches, but Alva did not come from money, or at least by the time she was looking to marry in the late 1800’s the family money was all but gone. Her family had a respectable name but it was clear to Alva that she had to marry well or she and her sisters faced the kind of ruin that meant ladies would have to go to work. During her marriage to William Vanderbilt Alva helped to manoeuvre the family into the New York high society they were so desperate to impress, and she built a lot of buildings.
Fowler portrays her as a fair woman, ahead of her times in terms of thinking about racial equality and women’s rights. The assumptions of her class and material privilege do however occasionally make themselves apparent. When Alva wishes to make more New York more like Paris, with stunning buildings designed to lift the spirits of even the poorest citizen, she conceives of a plan for each family within the Vanderbilts to contruct a magnificent home for themselves in the city. Presumably this is so the poor can come and look at the outside of the building, and feel uplifted and inspired. Because they sure as hell won’t be getting inside.
Alva eventually divorced Vanderbilt with a remarkably good settlement granting her money and the children. Such a settlement was unheard of at the time, and a testament to Alva’s intelligence. She went on to marry for love and eventually became a leading sufferagette.
Such an interesting life deserves the intimate insight of Fowler gives it. I didn’t love this one quite as much as Z but still it’s am absorbing and interesting read.
