A good,useful guide to the era Brooke lived in. I received a clean copy promptly and uneventfully.

Just before I began this review, I was listening to Ravel's "Pavane For a Dead Infanta", which is the classical piece played at Bridget Hayward's funeral in the Autumn of 1960. Her older sister's narrative of the triumphs and tragedies of her family has the beautiful solemnity of "Pavane" itself.It's like a flower that blooms, grows, and dies far too quickly, somehow never quite fulfilling its true potential, like her younger sister. The Haywards' story is a typical Hollywood-style tragedy. But I felt intrigued by the detailed descriptions of the people and places Brooke Hayward knew, enthralled by the descriptions of the stylishness of her step-mother, Pamela, who later became the U.S. Ambassador to France, the heartiness, of her Grandfather who spent hours creating a beautful display quilt for his two granddaughters when they were children, the lonliness her father, Leland Hayward still felt years after being abandoned by his mother, and his unfortunate continuation of that cycle of behavior, of Margaret Sullavan's domineering spirit, of the failure of Bridget and Bill to live up to parental expectations, and of young, ill-fated Bridget's accute case of Middle Child Syndrome. Somehow, I didn't feel altogether surprised by her early death. Along the way, Brooke expresses concern for those who cared for and about her family when she was growing up, and gives a facinating study of life in Old Hollywood and Broadway in their Golden Ages. As Henry Fonda was one of Margaret Sullavan's ex-husbands, and the Fonda children and Hayward children were very close, I've often wondered if actress Bridget Fonda was named for Bridget Hayward. Brooke Hayward is someone who has come through a lot in her life, and one can only hope that she and her brother have found some peace after all the unhappiness they suffered.