In the fall of 2005, New York Magazine asked award-winning journalist Meryl Gordon to write a story about the legendary philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor, who had vanished from public view at the age of 103. Gordon started interviews but put the piece aside, unable to get the details she needed. The following summer, the Astor scandal erupted when her grandson - joined by Henry Kissinger, Annette de la Renta, and David Rockefeller - sued Anthony Marshall (Brooke’s 84-year-old son) for mistreating Brooke, swindling millions from her in a shocking case of elder abuse.
Gordon published her article and was immediately offered a book contract. Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach was a New York Times bestseller. When Gordon attended the Marshall criminal trial in 2009, six months after the publication of her book, the evidence so closely tracked the facts she had uncovered that she had a sense of ‘deja vu’ watching it unfold in a courtroom.
Meryl has broad experience as a journalist, having written for national magazines like Vanity Fair, newspapers, and reported on television and radio. The topics she has covered range from national politics and economics to fashion, celebrities, and book reviews. In addition, she is a tenured professor at NYU, where she teaches journalism, and is director of NYU’s graduate Magazine and Digital Storytelling program.
Gordon has a rare quality: the ability to do meticulous research and then weave the material into spellbinding storytelling. She wrote three other captivating biographies of women who led fascinating lives. The Phantom of Fifth Avenue (2014) tells the story of wealthy and reclusive Huguette Clark, daughter of Montana's ‘Copper King’ William Andrews Clark; Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend (2017), which captures the spirit of an American aristocrat; and this year’s intriguing chronicle of Perle Mesta, The Woman Who Knew Everyone.
It was an invitation from a friend to go to a revival of Irving Berlin’s 1950 Broadway hit, Call Me Madam, a fictionalized account of “The Hostess with the Mostest,” that inspired Gordon to write this latest book, which Jon Meacham called "an absorbing and illuminating portrait of a lost world," and which Town and Country named a “must read book” of 2025.
We are delighted that Meryl Gordon will be in conversation with renowned crime novelist and Johann Fust Library Foundation board member, Linda Fairstein.
This event is free, but registration is required. Please register below.
To register by phone, call the foundation office at (941) 964-0211.
