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Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, And The Last Days Of Wasp Splendor (2009)

by Tad Friend(Favorite Author)

3.13 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0316003174 (ISBN13: 9780316003179)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: I really enjoyed this book and am surprised by the unfavorable reviews. It's understated, full of dry humor and insight about a privileged life. We all knew that when we picked it up, right? Tad's descriptions of, and conversations with, his mother and father were just irresistible. Maybe it's because I'm not at all WASP, and that I've always been entranced by how people from old money seem so relaxed in the world, with nothing to prove, compared to people with new money who have so much to prove. Loved it.
review 2: I waffled whether to give this a three or a four star rating. It was part family history, part memoir, part social history of one of the most fascinating aspects of our country, the decline of the WASP. I loved the historical parts. What a weird... more subgroup! Wasps so dominated our country for most of its history, and according to this book, started a steep decline around the 1960s. Today it's so funny to me to think about Wasps still kicking in the same way they used to. I will say, despite their rampant anti-semitism, racism, classism, misogyny, self-aggrandizement, and truly atrocious parenting styles, I find this subgroup hilarious, not in spite of but because of these reasons. Mad Men, Gilmore Girls, and Catcher in the Rye have solidified this weird fascination. Gotta love those Wasps! I will say, the more personal parts about Tad Friend himself were not very compelling. I was totally uninterested in his psychoanalysis and constant womanizing for much of his twenties and thirties. It's been done Tad. However, Tad, your family's connections are incredible. His mother came in second to Sylvia Plath in a poetry contest that was judged by W.H. Auden, his great-great-great-something-grandfather was one of the first students at Yale, and his ancestors were pretty much robber barons (nouveau riche, gross!) or Mayflower passengers.Also, a note on Wasp names: much like the Mittfords, this pack of weirdos has SO many nicknames. Day, Lib, Foffie, Goggie, Timmy (a grandmother), Timmie (a girl), Pier (a boy), Baba (a beloved cook), freakin' Tad for that matter. It's like the most random syllables used in complete sincerity. Anyway, I enjoyed this read! An interesting cultural history about America's most successful and powerful families told with anthropological-like precision. less

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