Renée Rosen, THE SOCIAL GRACES: A Novel
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Renee Rosen is the author of The Social Graces.
[0:40]She's the best-selling author of Park Avenue Summer, Wendy City Blues, White Collar Girl, What the Lady Wants, and Doll Face.
[0:47]She's also the author of Every Crooked Pot, a YA novel published in 2007.
[0:51]Renee lives in Chicago.
[0:52]Welcome Renee, thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss the social graces.
[0:57]Thanks for having me here.
[0:59]It's my pleasure.
[1:00]So will you tell listeners what your book is about?
[1:03]And then I want to hear what inspired you to write it.
[1:06]Okay, sort of the elevator pitch.
[1:08]Social graces is based on the true story of two very powerful women, Alabama Vanderbilt,
[1:14]and Caroline Astor, who were vying for control of New York society during the Gilded Age.
[1:20]So on the one hand, you have Caroline Astor, who was the Mrs. Astor.
[1:24]She was the reigning queen of society and the gatekeeper.
[1:28]She determined who was in and who was left out in the cold.
[1:32]And they went so far as to actually draw up a list of the 400.
[1:36]And there were literally 400 names that they deemed were allowed into fashionable society.
[1:42]And ironically, Alabama Vanderbilt was not on that list.
[1:46]So, you know, why didn't Mrs. Astor want Alabama Vanderbilt in society?
[1:51]And it was really because society was divided into two very distinctive camps.
[1:56]So on the one hand, you had the nipper bakers or the old money.
[2:00]And on the other side, you had the industrialist or the new borish, the new money.
[2:06]And Caroline Astor was a nipper baker.
[2:09]She did not like new money.
[2:11]She especially did not like railroad money.
[2:13]And she felt that one's money, one's wealth should be inherited, not earned,
[2:17]which I think is a great gig if you can get it.
[2:20]But, you know, she thought the new borish were really flashy and tacky.
[2:24]And they didn't have many manners.
[2:26]My god, they ate their peas with a fork rather than a fork and knife.
[2:30]And Alba, of course, was railroad money.
[2:32]She was new money.
[2:33]And she took great offense to the exclusion.
[2:36]And this set up this bitter rival rate between these two women.
[2:40]And it became a competition who could throw the most elaborate ball
[2:44]who had the more expensive clothes, who had the bigger mansion.
[2:48]And a bookseller friend of mine said, oh my god, this is like the real housewives
[2:52]of New York City button worth counts.
[2:54]And I thought that was kind of a good, good description.
[2:57]And really, it's about ladies behaving badly.
[3:01]But as you point out in the book, Mrs. Astor's money from that also was new
[3:06]vote at some point.
[3:07]Right.
[3:08]Like, that was also a form of an industrial fortune as well.
[3:11]Yeah.
[3:12]So which would she conveniently?
[3:13]Yeah, she's so not like to do that.
[3:15]Yeah.
[3:16]And so that's the reason that she was Emily really the daughter's name
[3:19]and did that did any of that ever happen or was that totally your imagination?
[3:23]No.
[3:24]So I took some liberties because at the end of the day I'm trying to tell a story.
[3:28]But by that happened, I mean, there's a scene at the very beginning of the book where Emily,
[3:32]the daughter, Caroline's daughter, slips and falls and Alba is there to rescue her.
[3:36]Okay.
[3:37]Now that actually came about as of a research trip,
[3:40]I went to Newport Road Island, which was the summer fun spot for the, the rich.
[3:45]And, and they had these cottages, you know, those 50 and 75 room cottages.
[3:50]And they're all along the Atlantic.
[3:52]And there's this famous walkway called Cliff Walk.
[3:56]And John and I, you know, wanted to walk.
[3:59]I was, I wanted to see the back of the cottages and everything.
[4:02]And I'm not paying, I'm so enamored of the homes.
[4:05]I'm not paying any attention to the signs.
[4:07]Like, warning, you know, pathway, you know, about to end,
[4:11]and advance a Jerome payroll 50 foot cliffs.
[4:14]And I'm not wearing sensible shoes, you know, and we come to this impasse.
[4:19]And it's literally just rugged rock and, you know, very rugged terrain.
[4:25]And John practically carried me over that.
[4:27]And he said, I think we need to turn around and go back.
[4:30]And I said, Oh, no, I will never make it back over that.
[4:33]I will die.
[4:34]And so I thought that was the worst of it.
[4:37]That was a cake what compared to what lay ahead.
[4:40]And it was like three hours.
[4:42]Oh, no.
[4:43]Just.
[4:44]And I thought, if I survive this, I am using this.
[4:47]So that's actually where that scene came from.
[4:49]Oh, my God.
[4:50]But in terms of the other daughters, Caroline had four daughters.
[4:55]And they each gave her a run for her money.
[4:58]So the various scandals of the daughters were definitely factually based.
[5:02]The stagecoach driver.
[5:04]The whole thing.
[5:05]Well, that part took a little.
[5:07]Yeah.
[5:08]So you see, you're more, my head's already into the next book.
[5:11]Sorry.
[5:12]Or just.
[5:13]No, I forgot about that.
[5:15]No, I did take a little bit of license with that.
[5:18]But in terms of Charlotte was definitely the rubble.
[5:22]And she did have a scandal that went viral, gilded age style.
[5:26]You know, and carried the youngest did go on a hunger strike.
[5:31]And Emily did cause her father to enter a duel.
[5:35]Oh, my gosh.
[5:36]You know, was posed with, you know, being challenged to a duel.
[5:40]And, you know, Helen was kind of the obedient daughter.
[5:44]And I found it interesting how you handled.
[5:46]Now I'm blanking in his name, Ms. Sesters, sort of right hand man.
[5:50]Oh, word McAllister.
[5:51]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[5:52]And how, you know, he had married into wealth to sort of up his station in life.
[5:56]And how he was obviously gay, but nobody was talking about it then.
[6:00]Right.
[6:01]And how the society was sort of handling that.
[6:03]Yeah.
[6:04]And he was Mrs., you know, Mrs. Sesters escort.
[6:07]So Mrs. Sesters husband was either on his yacht drunk or canoeing with harlots or all of the above.
[6:15]And so she was always on her own.
[6:18]And, you know, Ward's wife was also very sickly and couldn't go.
[6:22]So Ward was sort of her escort, but nobody ever suspected that there was anything, you know,
[6:28]until I'm between the two of them.
[6:30]So.
[6:31]And also the suitor who comes back from England and like, where's a monicle and pretense he has a British accent.
[6:36]Oh, yeah.
[6:37]And, you know, like a total poser and.
[6:40]Van Allen.
[6:41]But, you know, of course they all spoke with that mid Atlantic accent that, you know, is not English and it's not American.
[6:49]It's own, you know, but and yet they they criticized him for talking with the fake British accent.
[6:54]So.
[6:55]Well, I just sort of love this theme of like not belonging.
[6:58]Right.
[6:59]Alva, you talk a lot about how she just is trying to fit in, trying to find her place, find her people, feel accepted.
[7:05]And because of her background and her, you know, how she had grown up and always being excluded in school.
[7:10]And now being excluded from society and, you know, being disinvited to parties.
[7:14]And that feels like the end of the world.
[7:16]Right.
[7:17]What does it mean to really be accepted?
[7:19]And why where does society's power really come from?
[7:22]Can it rest with one person?
[7:24]I mean, I know it did, you know, in this fictitious based on reality world.
[7:28]But, you know, who is the arbiter of society now?
[7:30]What is it?
[7:31]Us weekly?
[7:32]Like, who does that now?
[7:33]Yeah, I, you know, the Kardashians.
[7:35]I don't know, you know, but it's, you know, the thing that I found so fascinating was that.
[7:41]Ward McAllister and Caroline Astor really engineered this thing called society.
[7:46]And they did that because, you know, you're talking to the 1870s, women had very few rights.
[7:52]You know, they didn't work outside the home.
[7:54]They couldn't own property.
[7:55]They didn't even have their own money.
[7:57]You know, the one that they had was social currency.
[8:00]So they created this world with its own hierarchy.
[8:04]And that was the only arena where a woman could exercise any sort of influence.
[8:10]You know, she got to plan the menu, the guest list.
[8:13]The, you know, it was the reason they got up in the morning.
[8:15]Somebody had to plan those nine course dinner parties.
[8:18]You know, I gave them purpose.
[8:20]I wouldn't have thought that she was so involved as, you know, I mean, I know like, here she's like,
[8:25]at these courses and do this and do that.
[8:27]And, you know, I don't know.
[8:28]I just would have felt like somebody was planning it for her.
[8:30]As opposed to like, Ms. Astor being like in the weeds, like, you know, yeah.
[8:35]Well, she ran society like a CEO of a big major corporation.
[8:40]You know, even if the balls that went on till four in the morning, she was at her desk at 830 in the morning, handling her correspondence, you know, and, you know, she did have an assistant.
[8:52]She had a social secretary.
[8:54]Yeah.
[8:55]But that was just somebody to deal with like the florists and, you know, but yeah, they took it really seriously.
[9:01]And it's so easy to discount it as being so superficial and so frivolous.
[9:07]But when you look at the fact that they had no other outlet, it sort of makes like they were kind of, you know, it's kind of a brilliant move.
[9:15]I mean, to be honest, if you reframed it, it's really like self government, right.
[9:19]That's sort of what they're doing.
[9:21]Yeah, that's very true.
[9:22]I didn't think about it like that.
[9:23]But yeah.
[9:24]And if men were, you know, if it had been in the mail society, that's what they were kind of doing as well.
[9:28]Right.
[9:29]Yeah.
[9:30]The Declaration of Independence and who are all the states.
[9:32]If these are like, yeah, another kind of citizens, if you will, of a state that she is creating.
[9:37]And, you know, they modeled it after Europe, you know, because, and being a nickerbocker meant that was the closest thing we had to American royalty.
[9:46]So, you know, it was really, it was just such a fascinating time to, you know, I was, I was just amazed by these people.
[9:57]And I could not have dreamed up these.
[10:00]characters. Fact is definitely stranger than fiction. It's like, you know, it reminds me of
[10:05]Little Women, right? The four sisters and, you know, just the antics and what happens and
[10:10]family and relationships and love interests and, you know, I don't know. Is this a movie?
[10:15]Is this going to be a movie? It should, it has to be a movie. Oh, God, from your mouth, yes,
[10:19]hello, I would love that. I mean, has there been a movie? I mean, you must have researched this
[10:25]on the way about these families in this time. You know, not like age of innocence is,
[10:31]you know, sort of loosely based on that. But what I'm really waiting for is the HBO series,
[10:38]The Gilded Age, by Julian fellas the same man who created it. And I don't, I keep checking like,
[10:45]when is it going to premiere? When is it going to premiere? Because, well, that is, I'm sure
[10:50]sure there will be cameos of the Astors and the Vanderbolts and all that. But it's really
[10:54]New York society. So, right in the Gilded Age, so I'm very excited for that.
[10:59]I wonder, you should talk. So, Allison Petaki has a new book coming out about Marjorie
[11:03]Maryweather Post, which I know is a different era, but also like a, a Doy-N sort of
[11:08]era of society might be interesting to have you guys talk about that, how it changes.
[11:14]Yeah, I went, I found, Maryweather Post was just a amazing woman. I mean, she took over her
[11:20]father's business. You know, and she started Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, I'm sure she's, well, we won't
[11:27]even go. Yeah, but she's a fascinating character. I saw that because I was actually looking,
[11:35]I was doing some preliminary research into her life. And then I saw that Allison was writing,
[11:39]I'm like, good. Yeah. Well, she'll do a fabulous job with that. You guys in touch if you
[11:45]ever want to do an anything together or whatever. Yeah. And you said it a little bit again,
[11:50]that you were so deep in your next book that you were forgetting.
[11:52]I think this makes sense. Tell me about the next book. This sounds very exciting already.
[11:56]So, the next book I am super excited about. I don't have a title for it yet, but it's about
[12:01]Estee Lauder. Oh. Yeah. And she was really a very interesting woman. And she really, she started
[12:10]making these lotions, potions, and elixirs in her kitchen, in her Upper West Side apartment.
[12:16]And then she would take them to the beauty parlors and start hocking her wares. And it really
[12:21]focuses on that time period up until she landed her first account at sex with Avenue, which
[12:27]you weren't in business at the time unless you were at sex. And she was a real trailblazer.
[12:32]I don't want to give too much away for people that don't know her personal story, but there were
[12:38]there were a few things that didn't quite add up. And it's just a fun look at the cosmetic
[12:42]industry of the time and Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein and Charles Rubson, who was the
[12:50]head of Rublan Max Factor and all that. So I'm having so much fun with this book. Amazing. Have
[12:56]you read Rouge by Richard Kirchampen? No, no, but I'm trying not to read.
[13:00]Okay, sorry. All right. Because I've made that mistake of reading fiction that's based,
[13:08]you know, and I'm, and then I'm so paranoid the rest of the time that, you know, that I'm being
[13:14]influenced. So, and when you're writing about Estee Lauder, like do you contact, do you try to
[13:20]get her life rights or do you talk to the family about anything or do you just get to use
[13:24]your imagination and run with it? I, so I don't know if you, did you ever see the movie, will you
[13:30]ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me with Melissa McCarthy? It was based on Lee Israel, who
[13:36]was this New York Times best-selling biographer. And she was forging all these letters later for
[13:43]by Dorothy Parker and all these other luminaries and all that and got busted. But before she did
[13:49]that, she didn't unauthorized biography on Estee Lauder. And, you know, she revealed a lot of stuff
[13:57]that they didn't necessarily want out there. And when the lot, when Estee found out about it,
[14:03]she raced to write her own book. So it was, it was really a rush to publication. And both books
[14:10]are really not very, if they'd had more time, they would've been good books, but you can tell
[14:16]that they were both rushed. But so that gave me a lot of insight because a lot of family is so
[14:23]involved in protecting Estee's legacy. I decided to not talk to them, just get, you know. And I
[14:34]also, like I did in Park Avenue, somewhere I've introduced a fictional character who is an assistant
[14:41]buyer at Sex with Avenue, cosmetic buyer. So it's, it's sort of, because I don't want to tell
[14:48]someone's story. When you do buy a graphical, historical fiction, I don't want to just tell a story
[14:53]that's already out there in nonfiction form and fictionalize it. I want to bring a new,
[14:59]something new to what. And using of interweaving a fictional character allows me to do that.
[15:04]How did you get started as a writer? Like, give me the quick version story of your life to
[15:09]you can do it right. I've wanted, I've known since I was a little girl that I wanted to be a writer.
[15:15]In fact, none of my friends would play barbies with me because all they wanted to do was put on
[15:20]the clothes. And I was very concerned with the storyline. And barbie and Ken cannot go to Paris
[15:25]because first of all, they're having financial problems. And second of all, they have the fight.
[15:29]They're in the middle of the fight. And they need to resolve that. They're like, just put the clothes
[15:32]on. And I was always telling stories. And, you know, like my first book took me 17 years to write
[15:38]my second book took me 10 years to write my mother said, if you want to make a living at this,
[15:42]you know, let's let's pick up the pace. So it was a long, it took me a long time. I got like 300
[15:47]rejections before I found an agent. And then I got a book published. And then there was like
[15:52]another seven year dry spell before I got another agent, another book deal. So, you know, very up
[15:58]down, up down. So, okay. I mean, it's just amazing how often I hear that. Like, I just, it's just so
[16:04]hard to believe. And then as soon as you somehow like break in, and then there are all these books,
[16:08]you know, yeah, I mean, get them out. Right. Once I found a home, and I feel so fortunate that I've
[16:15]got a great team. And I found a home that I get to do this, you know, and I have friends who are
[16:23]either querying for agents or trying to get their first books out there. And it's like, it just
[16:27]takes one. It just got a, you just got to have that bounce back, you know, and rejection five more
[16:34]queries go out, you know, and just, just keep at it. I wonder if there needs to be this like,
[16:40]like almost like a clearinghouse. Right. Because a lot of really good stuff gets rejected,
[16:45]but then a lot of stuff should be rejected. Right. Some of it's not quite ready. But as an author,
[16:50]you don't know where you fall on that spectrum. Yeah. And timing accounts for so much of this,
[16:57]you know, a book that wasn't right five years ago could be perfect for right now. Yes.
[17:03]You know, and, and you know, people who want to follow a trend because they don't understand
[17:08]how long the cycle, the publishing cycle is. So, you know, if, if domestic suspense is very hot
[17:15]at a certain time period, everyone wants to do that. And then by the time their book comes out,
[17:19]it's not, or is ready to go to market, it's not fresh anymore. So it's, it's a tough business.
[17:26]Yeah. It's a wonderful business. Yes. Yes. What do you like to read, by the way? Oh, gosh,
[17:32]I read a lot of historical fiction. I read, and I'm not sure what draws a line between
[17:37]literary and non-literary, but I do love beautifully crafted sentences. And, you know, I will just
[17:44]savor that. And some, you know, and I discovered audio books during the pandemic. I couldn't read
[17:52]in the beginning. Like many people, there was, you know, few distractions going on. And so I
[17:57]started listening to audio books and working jigsaw puzzles. And that got me through the pandemic.
[18:04]And now I'm sort of hooked on audio books, which is great, because I'm able to get more,
[18:08]more reading in, I don't know if that counts as reading. It counts. It counts. It counts. Okay.
[18:14]I did it like a Facebook live recently with the founder of audio file magazine. So I had this
[18:19]whole talk with her Robin about the audio and how it's changing over time and like where it's going.
[18:26]There's such a boom, right? People love to listen and they didn't even know it, right? With podcast
[18:30]and audio. I mean, here we are talking about listening. So, yeah, it's great. You know, you go work out
[18:36]and get lost in a book and you're not thinking about, oh my God, three more minutes of this,
[18:41]you know, of this grueling workout, you know, so I don't know. It's kind of, I've always got my
[18:47]pads in and I've always, I've always got a book queued up. So what's, what's today just out of curiosity?
[18:54]Today, what am I reading? I just started the new Sally Rooney book. Okay. Can I come out today?
[19:00]I think I must have just come out. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's just a treat. Yeah. Excellent. Amazing.
[19:09]So what advice would you have for aspiring authors? You know, you got the usual, you know,
[19:13]you got to read and write and read and write and read and write, but I think the secret sauce
[19:19]really is you have to believe it's going to happen for you. I think when you absolutely commit to it
[19:26]and believe it's going to happen, I just think doors start to open. You'll start to meet people like
[19:33]I didn't know another writer when, you know, I decided I was going to write books. I hadn't met.
[19:40]Anybody else that was doing this. I don't even know where it came from that I was going to do this,
[19:43]but it's some point you just have to believe if it happened for one other person, why can't it
[19:50]happen for you? And the power of belief is just really it's, it's a real thing and it keeps you going
[19:57]when the disappointments come.
[20:00]and you brush yourself off and as long as you just make that commitment to yourself and know in
[20:08]your heart of hearts that it is going to happen. And you just keep going. I love that.
[20:15]I did this like weight loss program on noon and they love these like you know positive psychology and
[20:20]you know behavior modification techniques but one of the things they say right in the beginning
[20:24]is the biggest determinant of whether or not you will lose weight on this app is if you believe
[20:30]like that is 85% of your of the success comes from the belief. I believe it and then it didn't work
[20:36]but anyway it's not I mean I did I didn't know I didn't talk about that. I did believe in
[20:42]while I was believing it works so I think it applies to most things in life you know and that
[20:47]conviction absolutely amazing. Well Renee thank you so much thanks for talking about the social
[20:52]graces I really want to see this as a movie or a limited or something because I'm so fascinated
[20:58]and I really wanted to hear more about all of the characters and you know tracking Caroline
[21:03]and Emily and all of them I mean I don't know it's I left wanting more so I'll just say that.
[21:08]Oh that's wonderful to hear thank you and thanks so much for having me on the podcast I really
[21:13]appreciate it. All right well I hope to see you in person sometime. Yes yes I'm a great thank you.
[21:18]Thank you bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books
[21:24]don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebioans and at moms don't have time to read books
[21:29]also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[21:34]of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
[21:39]sound editing and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[21:43]outro music.