An American Beauty
An American Beauty is a rags-to-riches story based on the life of Arabella Yarrington Huntington, a Gilded Age beauty who was one of the wealthiest women in turn-of-the-century America. Arabella’s rise from a ramshackle boarding house in Richmond, Virginia, to a sumptuous New York City townhouse was shrouded in scandal, a fact she strove to conceal in a society where one’s name and breeding meant everything.
The novel opens in 1869, and Arabella Yarrington is struggling to support her impoverished family by working in an illegal casino in Richmond. An unexpected police raid brings her into the orbit of Collis Huntington, a wealthy railroad baron visiting from New York City. Transfixed by her beauty, wit, and intelligence, Huntington begins courting Arabella despite having a wife and child. When she agrees to become Collis’s mistress, Arabella and her family are catapulted from poverty to riches. Being a shadow wife is not easy for Arabella, especially when she moves to New York and is suddenly under the scrutiny of society… and the real Mrs. Huntington.
Shana Abe is an accomplished author with an evocative writing style. Her succinct but nuanced descriptions of the cities and places Arabella inhabited set the scene without overburdening the reader. While the story unfolds primarily from Arabella’s point of view, there are certain scenes and situations told from the perspective of Catherine Yarrington, Arabella’s mother, and Clara Prentice Huntington, the adopted daughter of Collis Huntington. These contrasting points of view were probably intended to provide counterpoint to Arabella’s perspective; unfortunately, the effect is more distracting than informative. Arabella is a sympathetic but complex character, and readers will find her narrative more compelling. Nonetheless, An American Beauty truly brings history to life and shines a light on a woman who has largely been forgotten. Highly recommended.
