Brooke Astor’s Final Days

Imagine Christmas at Oscar de la Renta’s holiday home in the Dominican Republic. Among the guests, the late Brooke Astor and Henry Kissinger. “We had a rule that on walks you could not talk about any subject, only people,” recalls Kissinger. “You could not say a good word about anybody. Brooke lived up to it.” This and other tidbits are found in Meryl Gordon’s Mrs. Astor Regrets, described by Dominique Browning in her review in The New York Times this Sunday as a “painstakingly detailed narrative of the events leading to the indictment of [Astor’s son and heir] Anthony Marshall.” Browning reports that “Gordon seems to have left no diary unread, no servant unsolicited, no socialite unturned.” Right to the end, suffering from dementia, a cruel son, and a pushy daughter-in-law, “Mrs. Astor still dressed for dinner every night, adorned in jewels, carrying an evening bag—to eat at a TV tray, alone.” The book is a convincing condemnation of Marshall and his greedy ways. “With the publication of ‘Mrs. Astor Regrets,’ Marshall is, effectively, guilty until proven innocent—at least in the social court of law,” writes Browning. The book is no easy read. “I took no pleasure in reading this book,” Browning reports. “Perhaps it’s a matter of taste: for mine, the story is too tawdry, too pathetic. I felt heartsick by the end, for all concerned. There are no redeeming figures, no interesting tragic flaws, no sympathetic characters.” A tragic end to an exemplary life.