Follow-up traces Astor family’s legacy
It’s hard to escape the name Astor when you are in New York City. From Astor Place downtown to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and even the neighborhood of Astoria in Queens, the family’s legacy is everywhere.
In “Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune,” journalist Anderson Cooper and his co-writer Katherine Howe trace the famous family’s legacy from its beginning, when John Jacob Astor immigrated from Germany and established himself in the beaver fur trade, a bloody and highly competitive business. He invested his fortune in buying up land in the rapidly developing island of Manhattan and became one of the richest men in the United States.
Cooper and Howe wrote the book as a follow-up to “Vanderbilt,” a chronicle of Cooper’s own famous family that came out in 2021. “Astor” sketches how subsequent generations either built on or frittered away the family’s initial fortune. It ends with the elder abuse case of Brooke Astor in the 2000s.
At times, the narrative drifts away from the Astor family itself, with a chapter on a riot that happened at the Astor Opera House and another on a second person named John Jacob Astor who may or may not have been related to the family. It’s an effort to paint a fuller picture of the U.S. during the time period, but at times it feels like filler.
Drawing mainly from secondary sources, “Astor” is a breezy overview of a storied family. Those who want to dig deeper into the family can turn to the extensive bibliography that references the many other books written about the Astors.
LaToya Watkins has surpassed the high bar set
by her beautifully crushing debut novel, “Perish,” with a collection of short stories titled “Holler, Child.” Heavily rooted in west Texas where the author grew up, the 11 fictional pieces focus on Black lives — and the huge range of people and relationships within — to form a profound collection.
In the namesake short story, which includes some of the most brutal scenes in the book, the bloodied face of the narrator’s son reminds her of the day she was raped and beaten — “Holler, Child” being what she commanded her 17-year-old self to do then, but couldn’t. Now, confronted with the possibility that her son may have raped someone, she has a chance to handle things differently. Its ending is completely unexpected — a battlefield of conflicting logic and emotion that’s hard to fathom, but also strangely sensical.
While many of the pages are about mothers and wives, some are from a male perspective, like “Dog Person.” The narrator convinces his girlfriend to accept his dog as a part of himself in a story that turns out to be absolutely heart-wrenching. Layers
of betrayal and hurt and blame and sadness have nowhere to go, so they fester.
Generations of trauma, sacrifice and striving make the characters complex, and Watkins fits loads of information into a handful of pages by skipping unnecessary context. Instead, she draws on societal truths and the reader’s empathy to form the foundation beneath each story.
Each voice brings something special, every narrative hard-hitting yet tender. The stories lay bare the death of a child, a partner, a sibling, a pet — topics that, in less careful hands, might be beyond ethical to approach in 20 pages. Watkins gives these momentous life changes the proper weight they deserve with the exact distance at which to feel them without being crushed. In all these stories, there’s tragedy at large and small scales. The fictional characters are in very real situations, each of them unique but carrying a feeling of familiarity.
“Holler, Child” is an excellent collection with true staying power. Every story could stand on its own but works beautifully toward the whole.