Once Upon a Time

Gloria Vanderbilt has written a memoir like no other -- as engaging and unlikely as if a storybook figure were suddenly to speak, revealing at long last events of which we have only dreamed. The metaphor is appropriate, for Vanderbilt had indeed been a storybook figure, the object of intense curiosity and speculation since her birth.From Newport to Paris, Monte Carlo, Biarritz, London and New York, young Gloria traveled with her mother. It would seem to be the life of a fairytale princess. Then scandal and a bitter suit for her custody shattered the dream world in which she lived.