Women of Privilege

June 1, 2013
The title and cover photograph of Gillotti's family history suggest a proper, luxurious, cocooned world. Instead, she chronicles abuse, neglect, poverty, and madness, even though this mind-bending saga is anchored in Grasmere, a grand, old Hudson Valley mansion. Gillotti discovered the staggering truth about her legacy of trauma and tenacity as she worked her way through her late mother's secret collection of diaries and letters written by the women of Grasmere, beginning in 1876 with Gillotti's formidable, blue-blood great-great-grandmother, Sarah Minerva Schieffelin. The troubles begin with Sarah's son-in-law, Ernest Crosby, whom Sarah deemed a traitor to their class for his progressive views regarding child labor, immigrants, and the environment. But the real object of scandal was Gillotti's impossibly headstrong and cruel grandmother, who broke with her husband, roamed the country, lunged from one mad scheme to another, and subjected her daughter, Gillotti's mother, to epic cruelty. Gillotti tells the hidden, harrowing story of her family with judicious restraint, penetrating clarity, and considerable compassion, ensuring that the Grasmere women's struggles illuminate the shackling and persistent misogyny that not even privilege negates.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)