The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries, and Her Granddaughter's Search for Home - Hardcover

Gaston, Bibi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060857706 ISBN 13: 9780060857707

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2008

Synopsis

A landscape architect recounts her midlife round-the-world journey in search of lost elements from her Hollywood actress grandmother's life after discovering the latter's hidden cache of diaries, letters, and scrapbooks.

About this title

Review:

.".Uncovers a family history long obscured by secrets and lies.functions well as a window into a largely vanished social and cultural structure. Heartfelt and accomplished." -- Kirkus Reviews

.a fascinating memoir... Her writing is deft and sure. .. poetic, wry, humorous and, above all, spoken with the voice of truth and compassion. With "The Loveliest Woman in America," she gives readers the topography of the heart of a family, and in it we find pieces of ourselves." -- Bangor Daily News

."a Dreiserian treatise on the corrosive use uses of money and class in America and how self-destructive patterns of behavior are often handed down in families.Bibi Gaston does a remarkable job piecing together this dramatic family history.." -- Washington Post

...a fascinating memoir... Her writing is deft and sure. .... poetic, wry, humorous and, above all, spoken with the voice of truth and compassion. With "The Loveliest Woman in America," she gives readers the topography of the heart of a family, and in it we find pieces of ourselves."--Bangor Daily News

...a granddaughter's search through familial silence for the grandmother, a beautiful and troubled actress, who committed suicide... leaving two young sons and a powerful mystery....wonderfully structured... a compelling story with characters of such life and particularity, they jump off the page. . . .A real page turner--Susan Shreve, author of A STUDENT OF LIVING THINGS and WARM SPRINGS

Bibi Gaston's hard-to-put down narrative mixes a Harvard Business School Case Study of American upper-class family dysfunction and tragedy, with entertainment history, with the most significant ingredient of all -- the healing of the scars on her own heart. The whole business is a miracle.--Tappan Wilder, Literary Executor

The discovery of her grandmother's diaries has taken Gaston on a journey not only of family and home but also of celebrity, politics, death, betrayal, and, eventually, understanding and hope.--Library Journal

."...Uncovers a family history long obscured by secrets and lies...functions well as a window into a largely vanished social and cultural structure. Heartfelt and accomplished..."--Kirkus Reviews

."..a Dreiserian treatise on the corrosive use uses of money and class in America and how self-destructive patterns of behavior are often handed down in families...Bibi Gaston does a remarkable job piecing together this dramatic family history...."--Washington Post

Bibi Gaston s hard-to-put down narrative mixes a Harvard Business School Case Study of American upper-class family dysfunction and tragedy, with entertainment history, with the most significant ingredient of all -- the healing of the scars on her own heart. The whole business is a miracle.--Tappan Wilder, Literary Executor"

About the Author:

Bibi Gaston, a practicing landscape architect, has kept a diary since the age of eight.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0060857706
• ISBN 13: 9780060857707
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 339