Anderson Cooper's Beaver Apocalypse
It's a book review!
Anderson Cooper has many full-time jobs: journalist, father, handsome person, and oft-amused best friend to American marketing genius/hypnotist, Bravo’s Andy Cohen (Also, noted betrayer of Kathy Griffin — Robyn). Cooper somehow also manages to be a very good writer, as is the talented Katherine Howe. Together, they knocked out a #1 New York Times bestseller with Vanderbilt, a history of Cooper’s own matriarchal line. They recently teamed up again and released Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune. (Wonkette cut links.)
I began the audiobook on a plane, figuring I’d fall asleep because a.) I was tired and b.) I often find audiobooks to be soporific. But oh, I was very wrong. It was not just a flavorless slice of rich dead white people gossip pie with mild history facts sprinkled on top. It was also not just about how the son of a German butcher came to eventually possess 15 percent of private wealth extant in America.
Cooper has never seemed shy about acknowledging his own privilege. He’s certainly put in plenty of hours researching and reporting the more disturbing details of his own family history. In this book, he does not pretend to be an unbiased observer of another Great American Family.
For example, he tells us up front that his own mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, seemed to dislike socialite Brooke Astor (1902-2007). He also remembers greeting Mrs. Astor while waiting tables at a fancy restaurant in his teens. He’d met her before in the company of his mom, and was clearly trained to be extremely polite. She stares at him, seems not to recognize him, and then cuts him dead.
Cooper allows that perhaps she was just having a bad day. But this anecdote sets the stage for a story in which we meet many Astors, some of whom seem particularly adept at ignoring the humanity of those who serve their needs.
Not long after Brooke Astor cuts Andy Cooper dead with social frost, we travel to the past and learn graphic details of how exactly beavers were lured, trapped, and killed. We also learn why that was such a lucrative enterprise for German immigrant John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848), who came to the United States in 1783 after a stint working with his brother in London.
Cooper and Howe spend a decent amount of ink demonstrating that John Jacob Astor’s astounding fortune was built in no small part on the backs of indigenous Americans who were overworked, underpaid, and deliberately induced to alcohol addiction in order to achieve unprecedented wealth and fame for one guy and, eventually, his descendants.
Indigenous Americans in beaver country were not the only people who suffered to produce Astor wealth. The inhumane treatment of countless immigrants by Astor-funded slumlords on Astor-owned grounds is particularly heart-wrenching.
Is this a comprehensive look at every possible side to every possible Astor family member’s story? Of course not. Cooper and Howe have a lot of ground to cover here, as they’ve set for themselves the task of writing an accessible, well-researched book that documents the lives of several members of one family from the 18th century through the 21st century.
I am familiar enough with the ins and outs of celebrity co-authoring to know that sometimes the famous name does all the work, and sometimes the famous name does very little of the work. The unfamous name (which sometimes does not receive public credit as per contractual agreement) always does a lot of work. But given Cooper’s track record, I have no doubt he did his share of heavy lifting, even if Howe did the bulk of it.
By the time we get to Brooke Astor’s son, Tony Marshall, being convicted of defrauding his elderly mother in 2009, Cooper and Howe have thrown a lot at us. In my opinion, they’ve done a damn fine job.
So, my mostly dormant conscience has been niggling at me, and I am here to try to Do Better.
I've had a Wonker, whose username is new to me, on more than one occasion chide me voraciously for something I've said here in the non-comments section. I have been the intended recipient of outrage for misogyny, political incorrectness, honestly-I-don't-know-what-all. I have non-responded to the non-comments and was frankly amused at the level of miff that was achieved by Our Young Wonker, "especially in light of this being a woman-owned" mommyblog.
But I have been reflecting. I realized that this person, if as new as I suspect, does not have access to the Archives that I hope still exist somewhere out in the ether, does not understand that some of these conversations have been taking place over a decade or longer, does not know that we have deep roots here. She (going out on a limb here) hasn't been here when we've cried over one another's dying pets or dying parents, when we've said goodbye to longWonkers, does not know that "ya filthy fuckaducks" is code for "I value what we have here more than I can comfortably express."
And why should (presumed) she? She's a Newbie. She is exactly why we came over to Substack and went through all the growing pains, so that Rebecca and the rest don't have to sew up broken shoelaces and turn paper cups inside out to reuse. Of course she's not going to know the inside jokes, or that mockery is our love language, or that when there is Need, we rally around one another without hesitation, because that's precisely what being a Newbie means. Sometimes puppies poop on the rug. Sometimes kittens get trapped in the linen closet. When that happens, we help, we don't sweep our skirts away and look down our noses at them.
Also, Rebecca doesn't need any more shit. At this time, anyway.
My fucking conscience informs me that I wasn't being kind or welcoming to someone whose intent was, after all, to protect and defend this Sacred Space. Instead, I laughed up my sleeve and did not respond. Not Nice. So this is me making myself accountable to the rest of you. I can do better. If I have to. I guess.
Today is Caturday, of course, and also the day designated for washing sheets and towels. When I have catterly assistance stripping the bed, it takes much longer, and is much more fun.
If I forget that it's laundry day and start to make the bed, Máebh reminds me that I am forgetting by deliberately obstructing the bedmaking process and jumping on the poofs of air under the sheets, and then I say, "Oh, I remember now," and begin to unmake the bed. With help, of course.
How does she know? I do not know, but it's happened enough that I cannot dismiss it as coincidence. Not, obviously, "Today is Saturday, therefore . . . ", but perhaps, "On the day you don't get up and get ready to leave, we do this . . ." Which is still a lot. And good that one of us remembers.
That is all.