Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age

Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age Donna Lucey is a delightful, charismatic author, for four years she lived and breathed the Astor, Chanler & Rives families, researching, interviewing family members, servants and neighbors. She had to read and interpret boxes and boxes of handwritten letters, which were sent between rivaling siblings some twenty and thirty pages long. Ms. Lucey then was left with the daunting task of digesting this vast amount of information into a fast moving, delightful read, without sacrificing the essentials, truly a yeoman's accomplishment. Ms. Lucey has character development honed to a fine art, carefully building Archie and Amelie into people one feels they know intimately by the end of the story. Molding this tragic story of the Gilded Age. I traveled with her from New York to "Merry Mills", back to "Rokeby" on the Hudson Bay, then on to Paris for the "Season". The book made me laugh, cry and sit in total amazement of all the characters eccentricities. I am still shaking my head in wonder, what a family! Thank you Donna Lucey for an exciting informative read, you are a fox of the literary world. Simply could not put the book down once I started and read from cover to cover, hated to see the story end.

I could not put this book down. That's something to say for a biography--or dual biography, actually. I was astonished at the ease with which Ms. Lucey spun off on side stories of interesting relatives or events without ever losing the train of the main story. Her depth of research, all well documented, is mind-boggling. Even the acknowledgements, where she tells about her interviews and the serendipitous discovery of an old trunk full of letters, was intriguing. Archie and Amelie were fascinating, larger-than-life people living in a larger-than-life age and circumstance. It's no small feat to present such a grand coming together and coming undone against an equally complex and theatrical backdrop. I couldn't help wondering if Margaret Mitchell knew of Amelie's story (which was well covered in newspapers at the time) and fashioned Scarlett after this bewitching woman since Scarlett's personality was dead on. It's one thing to read of such a fictional character, quite another to know the subject was a real person. All in all, a terrific read. Highly recommended.

Loved this book, especially since I knew nothing about Archie and Amelie as my readings on the Astors deals primarily with the founding fathers ... they were not right for each other and despite all their respective intellects - - - something was wrong with what appeared to be a woman in the relationship and Amelie used Archie mercilessly, as she did with everybody else! At the end she got what she put into her life.

Dual biography that captures the gilded age as it tells a compelling tale of two lovers and their madness and eccentricities intertwined with their families and wealth. It's a great portrait of the times. Very engaging read.

Non-fiction that reads like a novel. I was impressed with the author's writing style and the thorough research. I read the first page and couldn't put it down. Fascinating account of lives in an era not far distant. Hope there will be sequels.