Gloria Vanderbilt Writes a Provocative, Masterful Erotic Novel

Gloria Vanderbilt has always lived a bit dangerously. Four husbands and countless lovers; a career in art and numerous business deals — Gloria Vanderbilt was a Smart Sensuaity woman before the second wave of feminism came to power.

Yummy Mummy to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, son of her love marriage to Wyatt Cooper, Gloria has always ‘lived different’.

The NYTimes writes that Obsession’s style of prose is inspired by The Story of O. It’s erotic, not porn.

On the subject of aging and being a sexy, older woman living a life full of sensual vitality, Vanderbilt writes the book. And some book it is — that steamy, erotic novel Obsession that just positively drooled out of her pen.

The NYTimes writes (and does include some graphic words, with their own apologetic nod to readers): Sex, presumably, is something Ms. Vanderbilt knows about, after four marriages, as well as affairs with, among others, Howard Hughes, Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. She said she wasn’t at all embarrassed about the explicitness of her book, adding: “I don’t think age has anything to do with what you write about. The only thing that would embarrass me is bad writing, and the only thing that really concerned me was my children. You know how children can be about their parents. But mine are very intelligent and supportive.”

Obsession’s widow Priscilla Bingham discovers a cache of letters after the death of her architect husband. Soon the details of his kinky sex life unfold.

There are scenes involving dildos, whips, silken cords and golden nipple clamps, not to mention an ebony, smooth-backed Mason Pearson hairbrush purchased at Harrods. As the book explains, spanking with a Mason-Pearson is a “serious matter,” not the kind of thing that is rewarded with the “luscious afterglow of warm cocoa butter.” Mint, cayenne pepper and a fresh garden carrot are deployed in the book in ways never envisioned by “The Joy of Cooking.” And there is also a unicorn, though, blessedly, it remains a bystander.

Gloria Vanderbilt can’t possibly be 85 years old, and we’re not surprised that she has a younger lover.

I’m wondering if Gloria knew Anais Nin. They seem like soulmates in so many ways. At 85, Gloria Vanderbilt doesn’t mind mouthing the words she wrote for print. In another amazing act of Social Register defiance, Gloria reads from Obsession for Newsweek. Get on over. Anne