Glitz, Glam, and a Damn Good Time: How Mamie Fish, Queen of the Gilded Age, Partied Her Way to Power

Journalist Wright (Madaem Restell) offers a jaunty biography of the wealthy Gilded Age matron known as “The Fun-Maker.” Before Mamie Fish (1853–1915) broke onto the East Coast scene, high society was run by fearsome old-money scions like Caroline Astor; it was stiff, snobbish, and often caused people to break down in tears for fear of being snubbed. Mamie found it all terribly boring. Wielding a “pile of gold” from her husband, railroad president Stuyvesant Fish, Mamie threw parties that became the talk of the town (and country): donkeys with gold-painted hooves carrying party favors, a ballroom decked out as a “Satanic Flower Garden.” She loved mayhem, and once intentionally released white mice at a party just to see her guests scream. She was mean and biting (she once ran over a man three times with a car; he lived), and she loudly aligned herself with the anti-suffrage movement. Wright often draws comparisons to the modern day: at times these make Mamie’s social scene feel zingily relevant, but other times the comparisons yank the reader out of the era with references to Instagram and trad wives. The book is least convincing when Wright insinuates that Mamie’s partying carries significant weight to this day, given that even Mamie herself was dissatisfied with the “triviality in which she drowned her time.” Still, it’s a breezy, easy look at a colorful Gilded Age impresario. (Aug.)