Surviving High Society: Lots of Love Triumps Lots of Money

Surviving High Society: Lots of Love Triumps Lots of Money
Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland
Bascom Hill Publishing Group
ISBN: 978-1935098072
Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewed by Connie Harris

Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland was born in December of 1940 in Chicago to an unmarried mother. Her biological father was married to someone else and Elizabeth was put up for adoption the day after she was born. Elizabeth was adopted into a very dysfunctional, very wealthy, blue-blooded family in Connecticut.

Her adoptive parents adopted a second child from the same organization from which they had adopted Elizabeth. Her adopted brother, Ted, was violent and disturbed even at a young age. From the outside it appeared Elizabeth had the stable well-off life many are envious of but behind closed doors that wasn't the case at all.

When her adoptive father died when she was twenty-two things became more out of control in her life. Her adoptive mother was an unstable woman who made Elizabeth's life much more difficult than it ever should have been and controlled and manipulated Elizabeth using her money as a control mechanism.

Using her lawyers Elizabeth's adoptive mother tricks her into signing herself into a mental hospital. The trips in and out of these hospitals would last for several years before Elizabeth would learn the truth about her hospital stays and her mother's involvement in them.

Surviving High Society: Lots of Love Trumps Lots of Money is a well-written, engrossing memoir. Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland was friends with Katharine Hepburn's niece and the inside look into Katherine Hepburn was interesting as well as Elizabeth's story. Surviving High Society shows us how the human spirit can triumph and overcome the obstacles that sometimes stand in our way. I recommend Surviving High Society it is a book that at times will make you angry and at times will make you want to cry. And as Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland says it teaches one how to make lemonade out of lemons.