One Woman Book Club Review: Under a Gilded Moon

My November book club pick scratched my ever-present itch for a good historical fiction. Under a Gilded Moon is set in 1895, the year that the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, was completed. The story revolves around the sprawling mountain estate but has ties to New Orleans and New York City, as well. It's also set during the fall and early winter, so perfect timing for an end-of-the-year read.

I feel like I need to be honest about how long it took me to get into this book and why. The summary blurb made it seem as if the novel was simply about a struggling mountain family and how they had to adapt amidst the Biltmore saga with the oldest daughter struggling especially to come to terms with her situation and the hint of possible forbidden love. Imagine my surprise when within the first few chapters, there's a murder! Needless to say, my expectations were blown out of the water, and I needed to adjust -- I was expecting romance, not a mystery. But I was determined to finish this book, so I kept going, and I'm glad that I did because once my expectations were adjusted, I found the book to be quite lovely.

The cast of characters was so diverse, and many of them were based on actual people. I also thought that the history woven into the story was fairly true to fact and that the author did a good job of portraying characters as they would have been during this time period.

Here's a brief synopsis:

Kerry MacGregor moves back home from New York City where she's been attending Barnard College when her father falls deathly ill. With no mother still alive, Kerry's twin 13-year-old siblings need an adult figure to keep them clothed, fed, and sheltered. Kerry's family farm is one of only a few left on the mountain; the rest have been bought out by the Vanderbilt family to absorb the land into the newly-established Biltmore Estate. As soon as Kerry arrives back in town, a newspaper reporter is found murdered at the train station, and Kerry becomes involved in the investigation by happenstance. Meanwhile, she needs a job. With no other options available to her, Kerry reluctantly seeks employment at Biltmore, where her involvement in the mysterious death at the train station only deepens.

The story is told from three different points of view (Kerry, Lily, and Sal), although it is all in third person, which I personally found refreshing especially for historical fiction when I feel as though I need that degree of separation from the characters. At 415 pages, it is a full-length novel, and the story is quite sprawling with many different facets and perspectives and converging storylines to consider.

To avoid spoilers, skip to the end of this post.

***Spoilers***

The story starts with Kerry MacGregor leaving New York City for her home in a mountain town near Asheville, North Carolina. She has been attending Barnard College, a university for women, on a scholarship but must return home to help care for her dying father and 13-year-old twin siblings.

Kerry has strong reservations about going back home. Her family is poor, her mother is dead, and her father is an abusive alcoholic. It was only by sheer luck that she managed to get out of Best and go to college, and now it feels as if she's lost the opportunity to better her circumstances.  But her siblings are too young to care for themselves, and she's all they've really got left.

The train ride to Biltmore Junction, formerly called Best, is not exciting, it does introduce us to the pivotal characters in this story. Kerry's family, an aunt and twin siblings, join her on the train for the trip. Also riding in their car are a Jewish newspaper reporter (Aaron Berkowitz) chasing a scandal to Asheville and a pair of Irish brothers (Salvatore and Nico) on the run from New Orleans and hoping to find a place among the Biltmore staff. The train is also pulling the Vanderbilt coach, though George Vanderbilt II is not on it himself. His guests include his niece, an heiress from New Orleans (Lily Barthelemy), a conservationist (Madison Grant), and a now-penniless heir looking to write a book about the area (John Cabot).

Shortly after the train pulls into the station, Kerry's sister finds the reporter dead. Someone used one of the railroad maintenance tools to bash his head in, presumably to keep him from pursuing the story that brought him to this remote location in the first place. Kerry is the one who identifies the murder weapon, and it's established early on that she "notices" pretty much everything. Suspicion is immediately cast on the one black man present and the older of the Italian brothers who just arrived on the train, but with no witnesses or conclusive evidence, neither are arrested.

Kerry's plan is to find work in town or in nearby Asheville -- anything but work at the Biltmore. George Vanderbilt II has been buying up all the farms on Kerry's mountain, and her family is one of only a handful who have refused to sell. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and when nowhere is hiring, or will hire her, Kerry finds a position working as a kitchen maid on the estate where she becomes even more embroiled in the murder investigation and what could be an even bigger scandal.

Lily Barthelemy is in Asheville trying to avoid a scandal...and possibly snag a husband. Her father runs the wharves in New Orleans, and her eyes are being opened to the type of man he really is. Still, her family name carries weight, and Lily will do whatever it takes to keep it that way. When she learned that a reporter had followed her father to North Carolina, she hired a local man to try to scare him away, but it went too far, and now that man is trying to blackmail her.

Sal, meanwhile, is on the run from New Orleans where he's been framed for the murder of the police chief by none other than Lily's corrupt father. He came to the Biltmore to take George Vanderbilt II up on a promise of employment made years before in Italy. He becomes a suspect in the reporter's death simply because he is an Italian, and that soon has his relentless pursuer knocking on the Biltmore's door. This man is one of the famous Pinkerton detectives and will stop at nothing to find Sal.

Kerry, John Cabot, and even George Vanderbilt II work to keep Sal and his brother hidden for as long as possible. Eventually, Sal is arrested, but he manages to escape with some help from the sheriff. He collects Nico from where he's been staying with Kerry's family, and the brothers flee the country back to Italy.

Meanwhile, all throughout the story Madison Grant is sowing seeds of discord throughout the town. He believes that only people of certain races and certain birthrights are intelligent and basically good people. He starts a local chapter of an organization that targets Jews, Italians, Asians, etc., and its members are causing lots of problems. One of those members is Kerry's old childhood friend and the man everyone presumed she would one day marry, Dearg Tate. Dearg is also the man hired by Lily to frighten away the reporter, but because of the fear Grant helped foster in him, he took things too far. Kerry eventually ferrets out all of that truth, and Dearg's conscience catches up to him. He confesses and then turns his gun on himself.

Grant early on sets his sights on Kerry, believing that her status as a poor mountain girl will make his conquest all the easier. Thankfully, Kerry is able to thwart his advances, at one point with the unexpected help of Lily Barthelemy. When Kerry learns the truth of the depth of Grant's involvement in the death of the reporter, he tries to kill her.

There is a bit of forbidden romance happening throughout the story between both Kerry and John Cabot and also Lily and Sal. For Kerry and John, they're obviously drawn to each other and even have the beginnings of a relationship. In the end, John hasn't left the mountains, though the author leaves things pretty open-ended. I'd like to think that things eventually work out for them. Lily and Sal are also drawn to each other, but they keep their distance physically. There's too much history, and Lily's father, between them, and there's no happy ending for them together. In the end, Lily leaves Biltmore but before giving George Vanderbilt II a bunch of Sal's sketches and suggesting that he might apprentice with the man who designed the Biltmore.

***End Spoilers***

Wow, that was a long summary! This book had so many moving parts and so many different perspectives that were important to the overall story that it was difficult to break it down more concisely.

I've said it before, and I'll likely say it again, but I love a good historical fiction book, and Under a Gilded Moon is a good one. Just like with some of the other books in this genre I've read this year, it inspired me to do a bit of my own research. As I said before, I found this book to be fairly true to fact. The Gilded Age is not something I've ever been particularly drawn to, although I am definitely familiar with the Vanderbilt family and their sometimes controversial contributions to our country's history.

George Vanderbilt II (sometimes referred to as III due to a couple of uncles having the same numerical designation) was the youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, known as the "Commodore." In the book, George was portrayed as being more of an introvert, preferring his library and the outdoors to the social niceties expected of a person of his status. He was also a known philanthropist, donating to and championing a wide range of charities. From what I can tell through my own research, all of this is accurate.

In 1888, George decided it was time to leave the family nest so to speak and build his own home. That home was the Biltmore Estate. He bought more than one-hundred-thousand acres in the North Carolina mountains, systematically buying out the largely unsuccessful farms of the mountain people in the area. According to historical records, there were several families that held out, just like the MacGregors in the book. The estate opened on Christmas in 1895, also just like in the book.

Madison Grant, who featured prominently in the book, was also a person of historical significance, although it's important to note that there is no historical record of Grant having ever visited Biltmore. Grant did play an important role in the establishment of the National Park Service and championed notable conservation efforts including the American bison and redwood trees, but the legacy he left behind was troubling. Grant was a proponent of eugenics as well as scientific racism. He published a book in 1916 called The Passing of the Great Race in which he used scientific theories to "prove" that well-born white people were the superior race. Sadly, policymakers of the time used the ideas in Grant's book to pass unfair immigration restrictions and child-bearing limitations.

The Pinkerton Detective Agency was also very real, and it still exists today, though in a different capacity. Started back in 1850, it's the longest-serving private detective agency in America. They're famous for hunting outlaws like Jesse James and notorious for their union-busting practices like in the Homestead Strikes. It was a very nice touch to include this angle in the story as it would have been incredibly plausible and highly probable for Lily Barthelemy's corrupt, wharf-leading father to hire the agency to hunt down the man he wanted to frame for murder. And while the Vanderbilt family did not directly hire the Pinkertons, they did have indirect ties to them via other families like the Carnegies who competed against or relied on their railroad industry.

Okay, I'm going to jump out of this historical rabbit hole before it gets too deep and takes over the post more than it already has. Hopefully I've convinced you of the historical accuracy of the book if nothing else.

Before I wrap up, I want to mention that many of the other characters are based on real people, although not all of them are historically significant. If you do choose to read the book, I would recommend reading through the brief historical notes that the author provided at the end.

So now for the big question -- would I recommend this one? Absolutely. Especially for fans of historical fiction and a good mystery to solve. This story was complex but not difficult to follow. The characters were compelling and well-developed, especially Kerry whose internal struggles over having to return to a life she barely escaped from the first time were raw and relevant even now more than 100 years later.