Customer Reviews

The Two Mrs. Grenvilles

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This book, like the author's book "People Like Us" is a fascinating fictionalized account of the Billy Woodward murder in 1955 by his social climbing wife. The book includes a magnificent account of how Ann Woodward lived with her guilt and ostracism for twenty more years until she and, separately, her offspring finally committed suicide. For New York City residents who are even mildly interested in the New York social scene and its various "levels", this book is a must. It is better than "Bonfire of the Vanities" and crosses the span of four decades, making it a sort of epic novel. Note that William Woodward the 3rd just committed suicide on May 2, 1999 bringing the real-life story to a close, except for the fact that his wife is contesting his will which said that she should get nothing of the vast unlucky fortune.

A quasi-fictional book, this is a delicious story about the higher echelons of New York society in the 1940's and 50's. It was inspired by the real life of Ann and William Woodward, and William's murder in 1955 by his wife. She was acquitted of any wrongdoing. But the murder's way besides the point here. The fun of this book is the insider view of those high society circles. Dunne, a writer for Vanity Fair, dishes about these folks with a giggle and takes great pleasure at exposing them and their snobbish ways. The main focus is Ann Grenville (Woodward), social climber extraordinaire, who sets her sights on Billy and his money and his lifestyle. She's a showgirl and his family wants nothing to do with her. Once they marry, she schemes constantly as to how to get accepted in those tightknit circles that usually don't take kindly to outsiders. And she does get eventually get included, even if she's talked about behind her back. The parties and the hobnobbing and the backstabbing all escalate and get out of hand, of course, and lead to one fateful night. A fun, gossipy, mindless read -- I thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was.

If you're shaking your head wondering why anyone would ever enthuse over Dominick Dunne after reading his terrible stuff on the OJ trial and the Lewinsky scandal in VANITY FAIR, go back to read this, his first novel. Not only does it feature the tasty gossip about the lives of the superwealthy which made him famous, but it also shows some real psaychological perspective on his characters, and a sense of irony about the pathos of these shallow society lives entirely missing from his more recent work. When I first read this I stayed up all night until I finished it--it's really a fun go.

In this story-behind-the-story, inconspicuous narrator Basil Plant tells his tale while directing the limelight onto Ann Grenville, the "murderess" accused of killing her exceedingly wealthy spouse in a fit of rage. Ann is a character the reader grows to love and hate, respect and pity. Her quest for acceptance on the topmost rung of the social ladder is both noble and pathetic, and is the core of a mesmerizing novel that aptly portrays the trials and manipulations of upper crust city life. I enjoyed this book immensely and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about gossip, manipulation, murder and lavish debauchery.

I am always reading a book on the subway. Most recently, that book was "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles." Bad choice. Twice I got so caught up in the detail of the lives of the Grenvilles that I read on past my stop. That has never happened before, and hopefully never again. Reading about the high society lives, the passion, the intrigue, the snobbishness of the society-registered upper crust is indeed a guilty pleasure, and a great pleasure as well. This novel, supposedly based on the true-life murder of William Woodward by his wife, presents the older Mrs. Grenville (mother-in-law): born well, married well, lived well. And it presents the younger Mrs. Grenville (daughter-in-law): born dirt poor in Pittsburgh, Kansas (yes Kansas), deserted by her father as a young girl, brought up by her mother and her various men of the moment, then turning to the glamorous life of a showgirl as she danced in a line behind Ethel Merman. But Ann Arden did marry well, William Grenville, Jr., don't you know, and she lived very well, to a point. To a point that her trashy, ill-tempered, paranoid roots took over and "Annie got her gun." Told by Billy Plant, one of the author's alter egos, this is classic Dominick Dunne without the incessant name-dropping, but with the terrific attention to detail he has brought to most of his writing. I found this book thoroughly enjoyable

I am a huge fan of Dominick Dunne. The Two Mrs Grenvilles is one of my favorite books. I just re-read it. Why? It's a great story, based on true events, and captivating. This is a book, not unlike an Inconvenient Woman. Ann Grenville is shallow and a character of her own creation with no heart, she over-played her hand, never learned all that she aspired to be, and became a controlling, all too obvious gold-digger, never understanding Junior at all, acting inappropriate, and cold, despite her extravagantly posh society family of her marriage - she simply did not get it. She wanted to belong; but actually pushed all further and further away.She really couldn't play the part as she thought she was doing. She married society and it stopped there as far as her creation of herself. She became a laughinng stock. You can take Urse Mertens out of Kansas, but not the Kansas and bitterness out of Urse/Ann.

But it is a very good book where the reader has stepped inside the pages and the silent observer within the book; knowing/feeling what will happen next. The personalities of the characters are defined so well. The story is well done. Bravo D.D. When Ann Grenville first visits the Grenville home, I'm right there in the house with her, the stairs, the rooms, and that famous chandelier.

The TV movie was a disappointment. The casting was awful as was the acting.

Dunne does have an over zealous fascination for the rich but don't we all.

In mid 1955, New York society was stunned by the sudden death of banking/real estate scion William Woodward at the hands of his wife, Ann, a former actress and model. Mr. Woodward was shot in the chest at point-blank range in their North Shore country house. Mrs. Woodward maintained to her dying day that she thought her husband was a prowler who had broken into a number of houses in the area. Interest in the case was so great that even the staid New York Times put it on the front page for weeks on end. Ultimately, the case was closed as an accidental shooting and Ann Woodward was never charged with any crime. Allegedly, Mrs. Woodward's mother-in-law, powerful society dowager Elsie Woodward, used her influence in New York to scotch criminal proceedings against Ann to save the family from the dishonor of a trial and public airing of the Woodward family's very dirty laundry. In 1975, Truman Capote (who had earlier befriended Mrs. Woodward) allowed a thinly-veiled treatment of the case (in which he suggested that Mrs. Woodward had deliberately shot her husband to prevent him from divorcing her on the grounds of bigamy) to be published by Esquire magazine. Ann Woodward killed herself with cyanide days after the article appeared. A short time later, Ann's troubled younger son Jimmy committed suicide. Eldest son Woody Woodward followed his mother, father and brother into the grave in the 1990s, also a suicide. Author Dominick Dunne befriended Woody Woodward in the early 1980s, and seems to have gotten Mr. Woodward's personal approval of his novel before its publication. THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES has many advantages as a novel, but depth of characterization is not one of them. In the real world, Ann and Billy Woodward had one of those stormy relationships which make for good reading but aren't easy to live with. Unlike Dominick Dunne's slightly vapid but morally irreproachable "Billy Grenville," Billy Woodward was a charming ne'er-do-well, a drug addict, an alcoholic, and a wife-beater who used his fists on Ann Woodward regularly. He also cheated on her with women and men. While, there can be no doubt that he both loved and hated his wife, their relationship was much more complex than Mr. Dunne seems willing to admit. In THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES, Ann Grenville is a character without depth or likeability, a woman who ruthlessly takes advantage of her husband's weaker nature, cons him into marriage, and in general makes his life miserable. There is no doubt at all in the book that her husband's death is deliberate, nor is the reader given any sense of the struggles Ann had to endure in her marriage, being unable to please either her husband or her demanding mother-in-law. It is as if Mr. Dunne chose to write the novel which Truman Capote failed to produce, and it is well-known in New York that Mr. Capote was unreasonably obsessed with Ann Woodward and sought vengeance against her when their friendship soured. Because the reader is never given any insight at all into the complexity of the Woodward/Grenville relationship, Ann Grenville just seems like a heartless gold-digger and poseur, Alice Grenville (the determined matriarch) a proud and honorable woman fighting to protect her family tradition from being corrupted by the common interloper, and Billy Grenville a shallow fool instead of the tempestuous man he in fact was. While I enjoy this book - it is engagingly written and very fast-paced - as a study of human behavior and relationships, it leaves a lot to be desired. Good beach reading, but if you are really interested in the Woodward case, make sure to check out "This Crazy Thing Called Love" as other reviewers have suggested.

If you're looking for a great vacation beach book or just something to curl up with for an afternoon, this is it. Great escapism.. . I really enjoyed this tale. I felt like I was a snoopy neighbor looking in the windows at someone else's troubles.

Actually, to say that THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES is "Dunne at his best" almost is not fair, since Dunne always is at his best. This novel is a classic work by author Dunne, employing many of his trademark techniques.

He took the basic plot from a real-life story of great notoriety, the shooting of New York socialite William Woodward. Did William's wife kill him? And, if she did, was that shooting accidental? Why would she want him dead? These are questions which have been asked in New York for almost fifty years and, here, Dunne posits some fictionalized answers to them.

The title is a reference to William's mother, one of society's "grande dames," and to his wife, who had been a member of the lower classes. Their marriage had shocked society.

Dunne explores their saga in his usual lively fashion, providing the kind of detail about the lives of the rich and famous that only an insider could know. As with all of his novels, THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES makes for marvelous reading.

"The Mrs. Grenvilles" is a mixture of the true-life events of the wealthy Woodward family, the acid of Truman Capote's "Answered Prayers" (which also had a section based on the Woodwards), and a few original ideas of the author's, Dominick Dunne. Dunne is not shy about "borrowing" names and events from Capote; in fact most alterations are so slight it seems hardly worth the bother. The names and events are also closely tied to their real-life counterparts; so close that the fictional elements, which often paint a very unflattering portrait of the central characters, do a horrible disservice to those involved. Many readers will assume that what Dunne has written is the gospel truth. In a nutshell, the story is about Ann Arden, born Ursula Mertens. Ann will do almost anything to rise above her Kansas farm upbringing. Finding modest success as a showgirl and actress, she scores the big time by landing William Grenville Jr., heir to one of the wealthiest families in New York. Although "Junior" falls for her, his snobbish family does not. After the central climax of the novel (no plot spoiler here!), The Woodwards protect Ann at all costs, rather than risk the dirty laundry of their son's life being aired. It is a truly fascinating commentary on the morals and lifestyles of the rich and famous, with an ending that is also very heartbreaking as Ann realizes all her work to climb up the social ladder has left her very lonely. The novel is written through the eyes of Basil Plant, a gay writer & extra for society dinners who wants to exact revenge on Ann for making fun of his sexual persuasion; it is his revenge that becomes the final straw for the exhausted Ann Arden at the end of the novel. Plant is obviously Truman Capote, whose unfinished novel "Answered Prayers" caused him expulsion from society (for telling all their behind-closed-doors tales) and was the final embarrassment for the real-life Ann Woodward.

Well written with fascinating characters and events, this book is a fun and breezy read; those who have seen the TV-Movie with Ann-Margret will note that the characters in Dunne's book are less sympathetic, and the rollercoaster temperament of Ann Arden has also been somewhat neutered. I enjoyed both book and movie, but they should not be compared to each other.