On Monday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m., Northshire Bookstore will host a reading, discussion and signing with Susan Gillotti, author of “Women of Privilege: 100 Years of Love and Loss in a Family of the Hudson River Valley.”

Using private diaries, letters and journals of three generations of women in her ancestry, Gillotti has revealed the darker side of her wealthy family who once lived in Grasmere, a Rhinebeck estate.

On the surface, the lives of these people seem ideal. The family at Grasmere has wealth, well-known neighbors including the Roosevelts and the Vanderbilts, and a rich family background in the Hudson River Valley. However, secrets lurk beneath this façade, threatening to disrupt the happy routine. The family is spared little in terms of struggle; they battle with mental illness, alcoholism, yearning for divorce and even questions of sexual identity.

Gillotti, the great-great-granddaughter of Sarah Minerva Schieffelin, used the resources left in her hands to trace the decline of her once-privileged ancestors of the Hudson River Valley throughout the century “Women of Privilege” spans.

Reviewing the work, Booklist wrote, "Gillotti tells the hidden, harrowing story of her family with judicious restraint, penetrating clarity and considerable passion, ensuring that the Grasmere women's struggles illuminate the shackling and persistent misogyny that not even privilege negates."   

Northshire Bookstore is at 424 Broadway. For more information on this or other events, call 682-4200 or 1-855-339-5990, or visit www.northshire.com. 

--Jennie