Growing up in the 1950s, Hayden Herrera was living in a supremely artistic milieu, with her parents welcoming such guests as Max Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, Edmund Wilson, and Mary McCarthy. Shuttling between New York City and Cape Cod, it seemed a glamorous life. But as Herrera notes in this New Yorker Best Book of 2021, her parents—each of whom married five times—prized culture above family. Reflecting on the emotional upheaval of her revolving-door family, Herrera also recounts how she channeled her experiences to become a historian, biographer, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.