The Rainbow Comes and Goes

April 11, 2016
Vanderbilt and her son, Cooper, relate the touching story of how an epistolary exchange created new emotional intimacy between them. After fashion designer and society icon Vanderbilt, now 92, became seriously ill in 2015, Cooper, a globe-trotting journalist, questioned their closeness and realized much had gone unsaid between them. He sets about rectifying that by opening an email exchange that proves illuminating and healing. Vanderbilt's early years were rife with tragedy, and her father died before she was two years old; in parallel, Cooper's father died when Cooper was 10. Vanderbilt writes of having no one to talk to about the turmoil around her childhood and adolescence, leading to countless regrettable turns such as dropping out at 17 to marry a decades-older man, and it never occurred to her to share or explain to her sons what she endured. Cooper recalls feeling loved by his mother, but also feeling that he barely knew her. As Cooper delves into their respective pasts, he starts to understand that, following the deaths of his father and older brother, he also took big risks motivated by the out-of-control circumstances surrounding him. Through greater openness, Cooper and Vanderbilt achieve a new closeness, demonstrating in this intimate and lively read that it's never too late to have a rich relationship with family.

April 1, 2016
A famous mother and famous son bond through email exchanges. When Vanderbilt reached her 90s, her son, CNN journalist Cooper, realized there might not be many years left to interact, so they began to correspond via email, carrying out a conversation on the important things that have mattered in both their lives. Over the course of the following year, the two delved deeply into Vanderbilt's childhood. She discusses the loss and effects she felt from never having known her father, who died when she was very young, the trauma she experienced during the well-publicized custody trial she endured at age 10, and the closeness she felt toward her governess rather than toward her biological mother. Vanderbilt writes with frankness about her impulsive love affairs and subsequent marriages to men she barely knew but who were older and filled the emptiness that only now she realizes was created by the lack of a father in her life. Cooper also explores some of his own issues during these mother-son conversations. He discusses his own anxieties and sense of loss when his father died and his trepidation at coming out as gay to Vanderbilt. The combination of questions asked and answered brings forth much more of Vanderbilt's hidden life than that of Cooper, allowing readers insight into a woman whose name is known and who has shared much of her life through various memoirs. The perspective of old age and the distance from past events has allowed her to unveil these new aspects to her son and now to readers. The takeaway for mother and son is a closeness they didn't have before, and their interchanges might prompt readers to do the same with their own elderly parents, perhaps with the same outcome. Entertaining and thoughtful moments exchanged between a mother and son who have spent much of their lives in the spotlight.

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May 1, 2016

Weeks before her 91st birthday, Vanderbilt (Obsession) experiences her first major illness. While she's hospitalized, her son Cooper (Dispatches from the Edge) is overseas. When Cooper returns home, he resolves to leave nothing unsaid between them. The result of that promise is this epistolary memoir, a yearlong conversation between the author and his mother via email. There's the infamous custody case separating Vanderbilt from her mother at age ten, her intimate relationships, her career in fashion and the arts, the loss of husband Wyatt Cooper, Anderson's father, and the suicide of her son, Anderson's older brother Carter. With five autobiographies under her belt, one wonders what Vanderbilt has left unsaid, but the strength of this book is that she's saying it for the first time to her son. Cooper draws her out, learning not just what happened to her, but how she felt--and this is his story, too. He describes losing his father and brother, and his perspective on the day he came out to her. VERDICT Memoir readers (and Hollywood fans) will appreciate this book, especially those interested in relationships between mothers and sons. A perfect Mother's Day read.--Terry Bosky, Madison, WI

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2016
When the ever-youthful artist, designer, and writer Gloria Vanderbilt (It Seemed Important at the Time, 2004) became ill at age 91, her son, journalist and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper (Dispatches from the Edge, 2006), decided it was high time for them to open up to each other. So mother and son embarked on a strikingly candid, psychologically intricate email correspondence, sharing memories, clarifying facts, articulating their very different outlooks on life, confiding dreams and fears, and expressing love. They compare their feelings when they first talked about Cooper being gay and consider how profoundly losing their fathers as children shaped their sense of self and high-profile lives. Cooper slips into reporter mode and asks difficult questions; Vanderbilt quotes poetry and offers hopeful life lessons. She also stuns her son with frank revelations about her traumatic childhood, teenage Hollywood affairs with much older men, difficult marriages, and, following her phenomenal success as a designer, the cruel betrayal that left her in financial ruin. Cooper observes that he always identified more with his father's poor Mississippi family than with the wealthy Vanderbilts, and he reveals how his brother's suicide led to his becoming a journalist. Fascinating, forthright, philosophical, and inspiring, these mother-and-son musings on family, life, death, forgiveness, fame, and perseverance are at once uniquely personal and deeply human.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Star power will be at work as promotional efforts reach out to the avid followers of both grande dame Vanderbilt and award-winning journalist and best-selling author Cooper.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 25, 2016
Prominent CNN anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent Cooper and his mother, Vanderbilt, a famous designer, artist, and cultural icon who has contended with the ups and downs of the spotlight for over nine decades, provide a heartfelt dialogue in their new title, which is timed to coincide with an HBO documentary film. Cooper and Vanderbilt perform the audio edition in a highly conversational format, though they each draw on their own backgrounds in how they play the parts. As a high-powered television journalist reaching midlife, Cooper asks his questions with focus and drive that viewers have come to expect from him on the air, while the more contemplative and artistic Vanderbilt presents her content largely in a spoken form of letter writing from a bygone era. They demonstrate some of their most revealing traits and perspectives through the “agree to disagree” exchanges of the narrative, such as their ideas about whether everything in life happens for a reason. Listeners steeped in pop culture history probably represent the most obvious target audience; the palpable expressions of grace and tenderness will also hold appeal for a larger audience of parents and adult children coming to terms with the past. A Harper hardcover.