During this time, she gave away millions to her nurses, decisions that would be determinedly and publically contested after her death. Despite being able to afford any material thing she desired, Huguette chose to live her final years as a virtual recluse in a hospital. The subject matter is treated with a sensitivity befitting the character of its leading lady, a woman who spent her life trying to escape the spotlight. It’s to the credit of its authors, Bill Dedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and Paul Clark Newell, Jr., a distant relation of Huguette’s, that Empty Mansions doesn’t become one. Huguette’s life contained a potent enough combination of immense wealth, failed marriages, frustrated ambitions and family rivalry to make for the most salacious soap opera.
After Huguette’s death in 2011, not only was her fortune picked over by her relatives, solicitors, accountants and some of America’s most prestigious institutions, but it also aroused a more general fascination that helped this book– the story of her family’s fortunes – become a New York Times bestseller. However, as Empty Mansions proves, great wealth always seems to attract great interest. Huguette Clark, one of America’s wealthiest women, almost succeeded in doing exactly that. Billionaires don’t just slip off the radar.
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