Brisk, wise, and admiring ... The book at times lacks the internal combustion of longer histories ... Shines when portraying the groundswells altering high society
Beautifully written ... Absorbing ... Strouse complicates the picture with deft accounts of both Sargent’s and the Wertheimer family’s tribulations beyond these questions of identity ... You feel in good hands reading Strouse. She is measured, her research is impeccable, and she tells of interesting lives in interesting times with interesting footnotes to boot.
Vivid social portraiture ... A book as finely crafted as the portraits it describes, tells a story that is both specific and universal—about the yearnings for recognition and the tenuous rewards of achieving it.
