Daughter of Empire
by Lady Pamela Hicks (Simon & Schuster, $26)
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Crazy Rich
by Jerry Oppenheimer (St. Martin’s, $28)
By rights, a history of the family behind Johnson & Johnson “should make for juicy reading,” said The Economist. The health-products dynasty doesn’t want for compelling characters, whether a reader cares most about shrewd business moves, drug abuse, or lesbian lovers. But Jerry Oppenheimer’s prose ranges “from sloppy to preposterous.” He often compares the Johnson story to Greek drama, but his hackneyed account “arouses few feelings other than the desire for it to end.”
Alone Together
by Teddy Getty Gaston (Ecco, $27)
J. Paul Getty’s fifth wife has created the “kindest, most understanding” portrait of a narcissist you’ll ever read, said Judith Newman in The New York Times. And still the portrait is appalling. Teddy Getty Gaston, a former nightclub singer who’s now 99, works overtime here to present a rosy view of her late oil-magnate husband. Yet even in her “very whitewashed” account, we see a cold, penny-pinching man—one who even bemoans having to pay for his young son’s cancer treatments.
Empty Mansions
by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr. (Ballantine, $28)
The philanthropist Huguette Clark lived such a hermetic life that “she made Howard Hughes seem like a Kardashian,” said Curt Schleier in The Seattle Times. This “blood-boiling exposé, written by a reporter and a relative of the late copper heiress, describes how a generous recluse was betrayed by the people entrusted to look after her. The story will make you both angry and sad. “Huguette deserved far better.”