Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
I received Dead End Gene Pool as a gift. I'm not usually a memoir person, but this book entranced me. Partly because I have my own history with old moneyed families and the craziness that surrounds their lives. Nothing in this book surprised me, but it was the way Wendy, a fourth descendent of Cornelius Vanderbilt on her father's side, wrote that had me in stitches.Wendy and her brothers aren't so much raised but tolerated until they grow up. Kindly, and sometimes creepy, servants take on the task of watching after the children. Wendy's mother is distant, both emotionally and physically, and doesn't have the inclination or ability to look after her children. Wendy's father commits suicide when she's six. The children are told he's dead, but nothing more, and are packed off to boarding school. Her grandparents on her father's side are fabulously wealthy and glamorous and basically take over care of the children until Wendy's mother marries an arms dealer and they're whisked away to England. All except for the older boy, who their grandfather has hopes of grooming into taking over the family interests when he dies. It's not to be.This book is a wonderful snapshot of what happens to later generations of the fabulously wealthy. Life truly is stranger than fiction. I wanted to like this book and figured I'd identify with at least some of the memoir as one side of my family is old New England WASP, but I'm afraid this memoir didn't work for me. The biggest stumbling block were the author's recollections of her early childhood, where she seemed to have the self-awareness and vocabulary of a 40-year-old. I just didn't buy it. Sure, I know with memoir there's a fair bit of fiction and "filling-in-the-blanks" involved, but here it was too much and it constantly threw me out of the narrative. Also, I'm a big fan of toilet humor, but after the fifth or sixth "bfffft" interwoven with her gassy grandmother's dialogue, I'd had enough. I get it: her grandmother had a problem with flatulence.
What do You think about Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir (2010)?
Those zany rich folks. Gotta love 'em. Wendy paints quite well with her humor brush.
—xxMahaxx
It's just so fascinating...these crazy lives. I really enjoyed reading this book.
—aceesay
