Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

EMPTY MANSIONS will surely climb the best-seller list. The book about Huguette Clark, heir to an enormous fortune and mistress of several large, poetically empty properties, is easy to fall into and harder to remove oneself from. Although not an especially interesting person, Huguette is fascinating on the written page mostly for what she didn't do in life, rather than what she did. Usually biographies that hold readers captive are about creative, adventurous, and avant-garde individuals doing unusual activities and living fascinating lives. Huguette doesn't fall into those categories. Instead, she is a shy, retiring individual who withdrew from the world upon the death of her mother with whom she had a close relationship. EMPTY MANSIONS is several stories in one. The first is that of Huguette's father, the ambitious W.A. Clark, who took himself on a classic American adventure from nothing to extreme wealth. His story is also the story of the American West, of the mining industry, and railroads. Once comfortable financially, Clark displayed his wealth in rather ostentatious manners such as the building of the Clark mansion in New York City, an intriguing but rather short-lived folly. The second story within the book is really the story of Huguette's mother, Anna. As W.A. Clark's second wife, she bore him two children, but never had the status or respect in society that she may have desired. Anna seemingly lived for her daughters and when the elder one, Andree, died, she and Huguette became inseparable. During this period, however, the two did make use of their wealth through traveling, collecting art, and buying and furnishing houses. For those interested in symbiotic relationships between mothers and daughters, EMPTY MANSIONS will definitely provide interesting, thought provoking reading. For readers who liked THE SECRET LIFE OF THE LONELY DOLL by Jean Nathan, the story of author Dare Wright and her mother, Huguette's life might prove similarly intriguing; the difference, of course, being that Dare Wright was creative while Huguette was . . . .well, Huguette. The third story in EMPTY MANSIONS is the story of the hard-to-understand Huguette and an outline of the last twenty years of her life. Suffering from skin cancer, she hid inside her grand New York apartment and put off going to the doctor's. When she finally called for one, she was admitted to the hospital and then, most curiously, never left. At the time she entered the hospital, Huguette had two very large New York apartments, a huge mansion on the coast of California, and a spacious country estate in Connecticut. There was plenty of money for Huguette to live as she pleased or to donate to charities she deemed worthy. After having her cancer treated and being proclaimed healthy, Huguette chose to remain in the hospital and live there for two decades until she died at age 104. The last section of EMPTY MANSIONS changes in tone a bit as the reader is thrust into the present day and reads about court cases still going on in 2013. All of the sensational newspaper headlines of the past few years telling the story of Huguette Clark flash by, page after page, as the reader puzzles over the ethics of doctors and nurses accepting large monetary presents from their patient and of accountants and lawyers whose roles in Huguette's affairs may have been questionable. But above all, whatever else EMPTY MANSIONS is about, it leaves the reader pondering whether Huguette was merely sheltered and shy or whether she was emotionally immature or suffered from a mental illness. It does appear that her life would have been quite different if her mother had lived longer, if her sister hadn't died, or if she had a mother figure in her life to guide and direct her. As it turns out, her nurse, Hadassah Peri, may have emerged as just that figure. All that makes the story of Huguette and her money a most captivating read. EMPTY MANSIONS is the perfect book for a long weekend at the seashore in the rain, for a few days snowbound in the mountains in a snug, warm cabin in winter, or for taking along on a cruise. No one will regret reading EMPTY MANSIONS as there is something to be learned about American history, wealth, and yes - about loneliness.