Parents: the bane and the love of our lives. For everyone there comes a time when you realize with disgust that your parents are not as honest, wise or all-powerful as you once upon a time thought, and then a time when you realize with forgiveness and understanding that your parents are entirely human, fallible, careless, like all of us. Francine du Plessix Gray does an exceptional job of telling the story of her parents (and her own story) without being overly bitter or glossing over the less admirable aspects of this interesting, self-centered pair of New York's glitterati from the 1940s to the 80s.

Like many books I've come upon by chance, this one had a Russian literature connection that I found enthralling. Her mother, nee Tatiana Iacovleva, was Vladimir Mayakovsky's love, maybe even his only true love. She, an exile living in Paris, was not the PC muse expected for the Soviet poet. He wrote love poems explicitly addressed to her and used lines from one of these poems in his suicide note. Her relationship to him, in itself, was fascinating and unexpected. Most biographies I have read of Mayakovsky rarely go beyond implying that she was a dalliance, a bourgeoise, not worthy of the great poet, but here Tatiana Iacovleva is center stage. She came from a distinguished and artistic family and that history is intriguing as well. In New York she became "Tatiana of Saks", a hat designer with well-heeled, famous clients. Her second marriage (following the heroic death of du Plessix Gray's French father during WWII) to another Russian exile, Alex Liberman, the art director for Conde Nast publications, put Francine du Plessix in the orbit of New York's fashion and art world for most of her life.

Francine masters the art of being both an astute spectator and a naive participant in the events and lives she describes. I am amazed by how little rancor she lets come out in the retelling of the sometimes horrendous neglect or thoughtlessness of her parents, though she does admit her outrage after the fact. Yet, she has the grace to see that these people, despite all their faults (and their were many) were damaged people as well, who, nevertheless, managed to create a world of beauty and yes, love. ( )

Lots of people can, and do, claim an interesting ancestor or two, but I don't know if anyone can claim as many notable forebears as Francine du Plessix Gray, whose family tree contains a dancing master, an intrepid, continent-crossing traveler, a fighter in the French resistance, a notable fashion designer, and a famous, wealthy magazine editor. Throw in a few dissolute Russian aristocrats, an artist or two, and a love affair with a famous Russian poet and a lot of famous friends and you've got one heck of a family reunion. This book describes itself as "A Memoir of Parents," and, while du Plessix Gray is an accomplished writer in her own right, you can certainly see why she'd feel a bit overwhelmed by her own personal history.

"Them" isn't particularly preoccupied with drama or revelation, indeed, sometimes it seems that the author barely participated in the family dynamic that she describes. It's not that du Plessix Gray didn't have enough material for a tell-all: the author's parents' lives were defined by emotional restraint the desire to impress others. "Them" is a much more difficult endeavor than a straight tell-all account of a messy family life, it's a meticulous description and dissection of her parents drives, neuroses and personalities. In the book's opening pages, the author suggests that she'd been waiting her entire life – until after her mother and stepfather had passed away – to start writing "Them," but even with a few decades to prepare, composing it must have taken considerable bravery. While her mother and her stepfather were, in some respects, ill-equipped to raise her, the account that du Plessix Gray gives of her parents contains a minimum of regret, recrimination, or bitterness, even forgiving, more or less, her stepfather's too-hasty remarriage to her mother's nurse. She readily admits that both her mother and stepfather were immensely talented and passionate, but also portrays them as calculating, money-hungry and egocentric. "Them" provides a remarkably detailed, well-rounded, and perceptive portrait of both her parents as individuals, spouses, and, finally, as parents. How many of us, authors or not, will ever see our own parents with such remarkable clarity and remove?

One of the blurbs on the back of my copy of "Them" commends it for succeeding both as a personal narrative and as a cultural history. This is an apt description, as "Them" describes a wealthy, educated, refined and, above all, exclusive slice of postwar New York life that fetishized European art and culture. Alex Liberman's Continental manners seems to have charmed just about everyone he came in contact with, even those who considered him a manipulative social climber, and du Plessix Gray's mother's refusal to improve her heavily-accented English probably helped her succeed as an upscale fashion retailer. The United States seems to be a more confident and unabashedly nationalistic place now; I'm not sure if I can name any part of American society that aspires to Frenchness the same way the Libermans and their confederates did. Times have changed, but, in a way, I'm glad that du Plessix Gray's memoir has preserved her parents fleeting, but admirably stylish, cultural moment for us. Recommended. ( )

Devestating portrait of a pair of dazzling, self-involved Russian emigres, and the worlds they lost and won--and lost again. Deserves every prize it won. ( )