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It Seemed Important at the Time - A Romance Memoir
by Gloria Vanderbilt
Simon & Schuster
ISBN 0-7432-6480-0
Published September 2004 - Hardcover - 162 pages - $22.00

How can one person live such a fascinating life?  Perhaps not that enviable a life, but fascinating nevertheless.  Growing up in a home of extraordinary wealth is not always what it appears to be.  In this home, young Gloria lived with her paternal aunt while her mother sorted out (or tried to sort out) her life in Los Angeles.  As a teenager, she dated Howard Hughes when out in California staying with her mother and her mother's twin sister.  She hit all the hotspots and rubbed elbows with the stars of the day.  At 17 she was married (not to Hughes), divorced by 20, estranged from her mother for 17 years, married someone forty-odd years her senior, met Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra (and many others), and sailed through life meeting people and having romantic interludes here and there.  She continued her search for love and acceptance.  Isn't that what we're all after?  She being a little too "needy", perhaps, was the reason she had to continue the search.  I know how she must have felt, kind of.  Unsurprisingly to me, Ms. Vanderbilt has self-esteem issues and insecurity issues she had to deal with, much like any other ordinary woman.  This is not a vicious account of wrong romances and bad choices, but rather a touching look at one person's romantic account of her life.  Ms. Vanderbilt is right: "...there's no real point in regretting."  Although this is a little bit "kiss and tell", it's not sordid, and rather riveting.
See my review of her book A Mother's Story.
Conclusion - A very interesting page-turner.  You can feel her passion, and on occasion, her desperation.