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You are here: Home / Writing / Doris Duke Takes Another Step

Doris Duke Takes Another Step

October 6th, 2015 by Sallie Bingham in Writing 9 Comments

From the series: Doris Duke

Find out more about my book, The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke, now available in paperback.

Doris Duke - Glamour Puss

(Doris Duke Photograph Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University)

After three and a half, soon four years, my biography of Doris Duke is moving slowly but steadily toward a publication date next spring. I wonder what she would think if she could sit at the breakfast table this morning with my editor and me and talk about who the book’s readers will be.

Of course we don’t really know. So much depends on the publicity, the timing, the events surrounding publication, which may distract the attention of readers.

But I like to think that Doris’ hovering spirit would be pleased to see some tidy, well-heeled, appreciative woman sauntering into one of the delightful, small independent bookstores on the Upper East Side in New York, and asking for “That new biography…”

In my dream, my book with its dashing cover (yet to be decided on) will be lying prominently displayed on a table at the front of the store, along with the other brand new releases. New York bookstores work hard to be up to date, essential in a city where today’s New York Times announces that median apartment prices have now reached one million dollars.

I wonder what Doris would think if she could sit at the breakfast table with my editor and me and talk about who the book’s readers will be.

So my biography must shed its rays of glamor, and since Doris knew a great deal about glamor and used it for her own purposes, she would be pleased by that.

Glamor…What a time bomb of a word, inevitably associated in my mind with some kind of fraud, the fraud that paints a withered cheek rose red or hides a broken heart behind a big smile.

In Doris’ case, glamor was not only her best way of expressing herself but almost her only way, other than dance steps and piano tunes.

She didn’t read much, almost never wrote, and the meals and parties she provided for her friends vanished quickly. The gifts she gave to her world, the three great places she created and passed along to the public—Shangri La in Hawaii, Rough Point and the restored colonial town in Newport, Rhode Island, and Duke Farm, the model of conservation techniques in Summerville, New Jersey—have moved away from her personal influence as they become the vehicles for her benefaction. And that is as it should be.

We are left with the photographs, intimations of glamor, as delicate and mysterious as a waft of leftover perfume.

Later on today I’ll walk uptown and stop in front of Doris’ first home, the big white house her father built at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street. I’ll imagine little Doris in her velvet-collared winter coat, gloves, hat and leather leggings flying down the steps ahead of her governess to get to the paths and lawns of Central Park.

And freedom.

James B. Duke House

James B. Duke House – Wikipedia

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In Writing Doris Duke The Silver Swan

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. James Voyles on Facebook says

    October 6th, 2015 at 7:02 am

    I can’t wait!

    Reply
  2. Ranny Levy on Facebook says

    October 6th, 2015 at 7:40 am

    Me too. I’ll buy an advance copy.

    Reply
  3. Jim Terr on Facebook says

    October 6th, 2015 at 8:04 am

    wow – how close are you to finished?

    Reply
  4. Sarah says

    October 6th, 2015 at 8:34 am

    Terrific post

    Reply
  5. Susann Forrest on Facebook says

    October 6th, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    Wow what a synchronicity. I was just at her place “Rough Point” in Newport. Can’t wait to read the book. She(Doris Duke) still does so much with her Foundation.

    Reply
  6. Barbara says

    January 19th, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    Oh and by the way, her home in NJ is in Hillsborough. Not Summerville. Which by the way is spelled Somerville. Again I question your “research”.

    Reply
    • Jim Terr on Facebook says

      January 19th, 2016 at 6:22 pm

      ?? This was a comment on your blog, which you’re sharing with us?

      Reply
      • Barbara says

        January 20th, 2016 at 6:22 am

        Her facts are wrong

        Reply
        • Jim Terr on Facebook says

          January 20th, 2016 at 6:34 am

          Plus she seems to have a bee in her bonnet.

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