MY PHILADELPHIA FATHER

by Cordelia Drexel Biddle ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 1954

This is aimed at the market that adored Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter and the Gold (1952) but my guess is it won't achieve it. There is an equal array of names, star-studded in society columns; there is a comparable picture of a way of life that is fast becoming a fairy tale. But somehow there isn't the same penetration of character, the same reality of conflict. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, the ""Philadelphia father"", remains to the end a tempestuous, incredible figure, whose eccentricities outweigh the man behind them. Life with father, in this case, must have been an obstreperous, unpredictable sort of continuing nightmare. The power of a name- two names (Biddle and Drexel in this case)- made it possible for Tony Biddle to box his way up and down the social ladder, to fill his home with people of no pretentions and strange pretentions, to take a stateroom for his pet alligators, to sing a star part by dint of a threat to the opera company star, to yield to his daughter's determination to get out of finishing school, even if it involved a snap decision to take up Angier Duke on an offhand offer of marriage (a marriage that seemed to work out well in spite of its start). He cut a swathe- an unenviable one-wherever he chose to go. This is a segment of Philadelphia Society- in a not too distant past, with a personality beloved despite his peculiarities, dominating the scene. Luxury trade item, primarily (plus those to whom the gossip and society column are favorite reading).

Pub Date: May 5, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION