Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor [NOOK Book]

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Overview

Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of Swarthmore College, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden--to Sylvia Plath. For centuries, Wasps like his ancestors dominated American life. But then, in the '60s, their fortunes began to fall. As a young man, Tad noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics. Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family's age-old traditions and expectations. Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the American Wasp, Cheerful Money is a captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to
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Overview

Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of Swarthmore College, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden--to Sylvia Plath. For centuries, Wasps like his ancestors dominated American life. But then, in the '60s, their fortunes began to fall. As a young man, Tad noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics. Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family's age-old traditions and expectations. Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the American Wasp, Cheerful Money is a captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to escape its wreckage.
  • Tad Friend
    Tad Friend

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
The WASP families of New England have long styled themselves as the American equivalent of the British aristocracy, but the prominence of American clans tends to vanish more quickly than that of their titled counterparts. Friend, a writer for The New Yorker, had a thorough WASP upbringing. Both his maternal and paternal families ran the proper course from elite prep schools to the Ivy League to the right clubs, set against a revolving backdrop of houses so large and storied that they had names rather than addresses.

\ \ Despite the glamour of such a life, a pervasive sense of decline emerged as the family's wealth dwindled. By the time Friend arrived, in the 1960s, the few jobs considered appropriate could hardly support or sustain the travel, the lavish parties, and the estates that were increasingly being sold off to -- gasp! -- the nouveau riche.

\ \ There's a sense of sad nostalgia in Cheerful Money for a life that just a few generations ago would have been Friend's birthright. However, also present is an acute assessment of the truly distasteful elements of his family legacy: anti-Semitism, for instance, and a tiresome snobbery. But there are worse things than having a trust fund large enough to make a career unnecessary, and Friend's deadpan depictions of wacky relatives, alcoholic binges, and the stiff upper lip typical of the Episcopalian elite make for wry entertainment. \ (Holiday 2009 Selection)
Francine du Plessix Gray
Tad Friend's winsome memoir…recounts with amiable nostalgia, the foibles and predilections of a declining caste…The author's warmth and pleasant wit, his reliably graceful prose style, usually manage to carry the day.
—The New York Times
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
American Wasps are now as rare as black truffles, and rarely has their story been told so candidly or entertainingly as it is in Tad Friend's wonderful new memoir, Cheerful Money…Friend's book is such a winning family chronicle that the decline he describes is less a fall than an exhilarating ride, less sad than heartwarmingly comic…a memorable hymn to a vanishing America. Exceptionally warm-hearted, full of good cheer, and ruthlessly funny, it may even have you singing along
—The Washington Post

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780316071444
  • Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
  • Publication date: 9/21/2009
  • Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
  • Format: eBook
  • Sales rank: 185,811
  • File size: 2 MB
  • Items ship to U.S, APO/FPO and U.S. Protectorate addresses.

Meet the Author

Tad Friend
Tad Friend, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has had his articles published in The Best American Sports Writing and The Utne Reader's "Good Life" among other collections. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Family Tree

Prologue: Snow 3

1 Tomatoes 9

2 Mud 21

3 Chimes 39

4 Sand 56

5 Bearings 91

6 Smoke 116

7 Loaded 139

8 Appearances 162

9 Clubs 191

10 Frost 216

11 Trusts 241

12 Guilt 267

13 Reconstruction 290

14 Lawns 311

15 Home 330

Copyright Acknowledgments 351

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 3
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  • Posted June 9, 2010

    Boring

    I often enjoy Tad Friend's essays in the New Yorker.
    However,I became bored with this book around page 20.
    I just couldn't seem to care about either his story or the characters (family members).
    In the hopes that it would improve, I pushed on to page 75 before I gave it up.
    This one is not worth your time.

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  • Posted December 5, 2009

    Sometimes Funny but Overall a Slow Read.

    The decline of the "Anglo" influence in America through the focus on one family was a good concept but did not achieve its goal.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 13, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 6, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 23, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted September 16, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 18, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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