anything a family i tried to distance myself from much of my life. i didn't know much about the family that my mom, gloria vanderbilt, was born into in 1924. she didn't talk about her complicated childhood. when i was growing up, the vanderbilt dynasty with its palaces and lavish lifestyles had long since vanished. the vanderbilts were like ghosts, mysterious people from a past i wanted nothing to do with. after my mom died and my son wyatt was born in 2020, i began did wonder what i would tell him about the vanderbilts. whatdy hope he learns about the lives they led and the choices they made? i began going through boxes my mom had in her apartment. they were filled with photos and newspaper clippings, 130-year-old school books her father doodled in as a child, journals and letters from her mother and aunt, gertrude vanderbilt whitney. reading these i began to hear