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Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir

by Wendy Burden (Goodreads Author)

3.21 of 5 stars 3.21 · rating details · 1,239 ratings · 319 reviews

In the tradition of Sean Wilsey's Oh The Glory of It All and Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors, the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt gives readers a grand tour of the world of wealth and WASPish peculiarity, in her irreverent and darkly humorous memoir.

For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to th...more

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published April 1st 2010 by Gotham (first published 2010)

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Jul 21, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like books about dynasties

Shelves: new-england, new-york, autobiographical, nonfiction

I didn't have the highest of hopes for this book about the dysfunctional, decaying Vanderbilt family. I grabbed it from the office pile this weekend for what I thought would be some guilty pleasure reading, mostly because I enjoy books with dynastic tension, from The Forsythe Saga to your average non-fiction tome about the Kennedys.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the most redeeming quality of Dead End Gene Pool was the writing. Burden is ridiculously talented. I found myself la...more

8 likes · like · see review

Aug 29, 2011 Pooch rated it 1 of 5 stars

This memoir is an extremely disappointing, depressing story about a dysfunctional girl who apparently has become a morbid, unforgiving woman. This disturbing story does not center on Wendy Burden's mother, but on Burden herself. As unfeeling as the grandparents and parents she vilifies, Wendy seldom visited her brother at a psychiatric hospital because "...the inmates creeped me out." The very idea that one can visit a dying grandfather and stand as far away as possible from him "...while still...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 29, 2010 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

From My Blog...[return]Dysfunctional families are not uncommon and while the stories usually will bear some similarities very few are told of the wealthiest of families, at least not before Wendy Burden's memoir Dead End Gene Pool. Burden's great-great-great-great grandfather was none other than Cornelius Vanderbilt and his eccentricities and proclivities apparently lived on throughout the generations. Wendy's father, William Armistead Moale Burden III died when she was 6 years old, changing her...more From My Blog...[return]Dysfunctional families are not uncommon and while the stories usually will bear some similarities very few are told of the wealthiest of families, at least not before Wendy Burden's memoir Dead End Gene Pool. Burden's great-great-great-great grandfather was none other than Cornelius Vanderbilt and his eccentricities and proclivities apparently lived on throughout the generations. Wendy's father, William Armistead Moale Burden III died when she was 6 years old, changing her world, but not in the ordinary way a parent's death might change a child. Rather Wendy and her brothers traveled quite often to stay with their grandparents as dictated by their attorneys after their son's death. From the beginning it is clear to see that Wendy is starved for attention and goes to great lengths to achieve recognition, including but not limited to decapitating dolls and dissecting dolls. Her older brother was given weekly therapy sessions when their father passed, however, she was not, for which she was quite envious and I do think in desperate need of. Burden paints a life without parents, however her mother was not dead but instead, off traveling the world and the children often stayed with their grandmother, who apparently was prone to flatulence as it is mentioned quite often along with grandfather, a man who valued having numerous servants, land, and boys. While the Burden children grew up surrounded by servants as well as a governess, extravagant gifts, and extremely eccentric family members, many of which were alcoholics, and siblings, something was lacking in Wendy's life. It is a rare occurrence for me to come across a memoir I am not completely absorbed into, yet I did have difficulties feeling anything for the characters in this memoir, which to me is quite telling of Wendy's childhood. While Burden uses witty comments to keep her memoir light, it is a rather sad commentary that people with the means for help could not offer help to the ones needing it the most. Dead End Gene Pool left me feeling empty and depressed, which is quite possibly how Wendy often found herself. The memoir itself is well written yet even with a lighter tone and the added wit the reader must be cautioned the tale is not always a happy one, yet one well worth reading, especially for those who enjoy history and memoirs.(less)

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Sep 04, 2010 Kerri rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book as a quick read of a dysfunctional family. However, the book is described on the back jacket as being written by the four times great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt and as centering on the mother of the author. While the genealogical connection of the author is as claimed, in my opinion, the book is neither about the Vanderbilt family, nor does it center around the mother of the author in the way I expected. I expected from the description of the book for there to be m...more

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May 10, 2010 Bronwen rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All my Cousins

Recommended to Bronwen by: On line

Not until the last two chapters did I understand. Read the book backwards.

You should have seen me yesterday on Mothers Day as I handed Wendy Burden's book across to my Mum and in the air, tried to describe how `ancient', `older than' etc, Mum's Family was in comparison to Wendy's funny, edible cheesy epic based novelette was, as compared to as a mere blip on her own Eadie and Burden landscape.

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Jul 27, 2010 Krista rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't usually read tell-all autobiographies, particularly ones that seem to be penned in that style that is currently populated so effectively by Chelsea Handler. Yet that is exactly what this book purported to be. It was only at NPR's urging that I picked it up this morning.

And it was what I expected, with that telltale sign "please let this be a best seller" with episodes of bad behavior topped upon bad behavior topped upon bad behavior plied with alcohol, drugs and more bad behavior, with s...more

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May 26, 2010 Lydia Presley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, memoirs, non-fiction

Bravo to Wendy Burden for writing what was seriously the most messed up, psychotic memoir I've read to date.

For those who don't know, Wendy Burden is the Great-great-great-great Granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Yes, that Vanderbilt. Between reading about the morbid fascinations Wendy had growing up, suicidal dogs, alcoholic mothers, sexual deviancy... the list literally goes on and on.

As I read through the book I had two main threads of thought going on. Number One was: how much of a spoil...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 17, 2010 Gaby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: coming-of-age, exotic-locale, historical-non-fiction, must-read, nonfiction

In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy Burden shares her unique insight and quirky stories of her privileged upbringing as the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The details of their everyday life and Wendy's anecdotes about her family are fascinating on their own, but with the added advantage of her biting wit, Dead End Gene Pool reads so well.

Wendy describes the moment that she realized that Santa Claus doesn't exist:
"A kid who can talk herself into believing the Addams Family was...more In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy Burden shares her unique insight and quirky stories of her privileged upbringing as the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The details of their everyday life and Wendy's anecdotes about her family are fascinating on their own, but with the added advantage of her biting wit, Dead End Gene Pool reads so well.

Wendy describes the moment that she realized that Santa Claus doesn't exist:
"A kid who can talk herself into believing the Addams Family was inspired by reality can extend faith in the existence of Santa Claus almost indefinitely. Okay, maybe I didn't actually believe in Santa Claus -- I mean I wasn't stupid enough to think an enormously fat man was going to squeeze down that skinny Philip Johnson fireplace in the living room bearing presents the size of footlockers -- but I believed in the eternal optimism and idealism of Christmas, and in the theoretical six degrees of separation as it applied to all grown-ups and Santa Claus." Wendy then proceeds to tell us about the Christmas long ago when she came face to face with her Santa Claus and what this meant to her younger self -- without drama and without self-pity. Wendy tells us of the times she met her childhood heroes Charles Addams and Walt Disney - in hilarious and self-deprecating detail.

I particularly enjoyed reading about the way that her family entertained during their summer visits to Maine. From the intricacies of the menu, service, and each carefully planned item to the guests and manners, Wendy paints a vivid picture.

The stories grow progressively darker over time with her mother's subsequent marriages, unexpected deaths in the family, paralyzing disappointment and the inevitable effects of time and hard living. Wendy Burden gives us a funny, fascinating and satisfying tale of American wealth and privilege. Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir is a book worth reading, rereading and sharing.

ISBN-10: 1592405266 - Hardcover $26.00
Publisher: Gotham; 1St Edition edition (April 1, 2010), 272 pages.
Review copy courtesy of the publisher and TLC Book Tours. (less)

1 like · like · see review

Apr 16, 2010 Stefani rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: funny, semi-depressing

I found this book utterly fascinating, perhaps because I'm a real sucker for dysfunctional family memoirs of the super-rich. Without giving away too much of the plot, Wendy is a fourth descendent of Cornelius Vanderbilt on her father's side and grows up in the shadow of this wealth, as the money and the family name has become somewhat diluted over the years. After her father's suicide, Wendy and her brother Will are basically raised by her grandparents, who are so wealthy that they don't have to...more

3 likes · like · see review

Apr 10, 2010 Sherry Conrad rated it 3 of 5 stars

The rich are different- to say the least- they can pay others to deal when their kids are hideous monsters.

Money can't buy class- although I hardly think that was the author's intention, that was VERY prominent throughout.

While interesting enough that I finished the book- life is too short to read the ones that really stink- I was a little put off by the author's use of $20 words when a dimestore one would have worked as well or better in many cases.

There simply wasn't anyone worth rooting for...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

As a big fan of dysfunctional family memoirs like "Me Talk Pretty One Day","The Glass Castle", "Angela's Ashes", etc. I was sure I'd enjoy this book. I thought the writing was good, but I just didn't feel any connection to author or her experience- I found her voice to be callous. It felt like a narration of horrific parental neglect without any real reaching out to the reader to sympathize with her OR invite us to learn how or whether there was redemption of any kind. Great, everyone in your fa...more

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Mar 17, 2011 Deb rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, women

Wendy Burden is the great-great-great-great grandaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, but her grandparents, the enormously-rich Burden family, only value their male heirs. This memoir begins in Wendy's childhood in the 1950's and continues through the turn of the 21st century. It is full of the types of characters you find only in novels or biographies of the scions of American society. It's incredible that the author came through her childhood and adolescence relatively sane, particularly when comp...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Nadine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I love a good memoir, and this was been great! Very similar in feel to "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" (although the lives lived are quite different).

The author is quite scathing with some relatives, and clearly seeks to protect other relatives and friends, which is fine, but it leads to some odd blanks in the memoir. While in England, she is given a cup of coffee by a new friend's family, and she writes (I paraphrase) "Little did I know this would be the first of 12,500 cups of Nescafe I...more

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Jul 12, 2010 Alicia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Again, this is a 3 1/2 book. Maybe even a 3 3/4 book. Just not quite a 4. It's a memoir about the great(x4) granddaughter of the Vanderbilt family. Yes, that family. It was a funny story and made me understand that whole "rich people are just like us!" Mentality that people sometimes have. It's very Sedaris-esque, if Dave and his family were to have billions and billions of dollars.

And I would have to say that I agree in the idea that families all over the world, rich or poor, are all very simil...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 25, 2011 Georgette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wendy Burden grew up the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Her family was loaded to the gills, and she outlines the privileged lifestyle she grew up with. Think Gatsby meets Chelsea Handler. She's also acerbic to the point of hillarious, from dogging her mother for being such a tan-freak(she likens her to a rotisserie chicken at one point) to trying to figure out how to try to get noticed by her male relatives, who competely ignore her for the simple fact she's a fem...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

I saw this on a table at a bookstore and was immediately charmed by the wonderful title and the delightfully bizarre cover photo. I was very pleasantly surprised that the contents lived up to the cover's promise. Ms. Burden is a descendent of the Vanderbilt clan and apparently a wonderful writer. She manages to dish her family and reveal some embarrassing and hilarious peculiarities, about herself as well as those around her, without ever seeming predatory or (too) trashy. She genuinely comes of...more

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Apr 20, 2010 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wild, wild read. A woman with wild experiences as a child, and a hilarious
storytelling ability as an adult. I didn't know the filthy rich had such experiences. First you hear of the extravagant life in Burdenland when Wendy and Will, her brother, live with their grandparents. That's when it starts to feel like life is geared for the adults, but for children it's mostly boring. When Wendy's mostly absent mother returns from many trips to the Caribbean and marries her suicide dead father's best...more A wild, wild read. A woman with wild experiences as a child, and a hilarious
storytelling ability as an adult. I didn't know the filthy rich had such experiences. First you hear of the extravagant life in Burdenland when Wendy and Will, her brother, live with their grandparents. That's when it starts to feel like life is geared for the adults, but for children it's mostly boring. When Wendy's mostly absent mother returns from many trips to the Caribbean and marries her suicide dead father's best friend, Peter Beer, the arms dealer is when the fun really begins. They buy a house in Virginia that Wendy describes as all brick:
exterior, floors, inside walls. It's a ranch house and Peter fires all the help because he wants her Mother to do it all. Since her three children have mostly been at the Burden in-laws most of the time, this is very novel. The children must shovel horse manure and paint fences and get 25 cents as an allowance for doing so. Wendy's descriptions of the food her grandfather obsesses over in the first part of the book switch to discussions of animal poop here. This is a funny story, one which I read parts of aloud to my better half while he watched the ball game and he laughed instead of yelled. That really speaks of comedic talent.
Wendy obsesses about being a funeral director and then killing off her family with various poisons she researches and a scene where she and Will singlehandedly empty the room sized walk-in refrigerator and cupboards of all food and put it on her grandparent's flat roofed mansion in Desert Is., Maine is priceless. All this they did because they want the chef, Alberto, to be fired. Alberto bit Wendy on the butt and her grandfather says, "well, chef's are hard to replace."
There are so many tales and details in this book that each few pages yields a new
set of almost unbelievable circumstances. This woman has an incredible memory of a
very eventful childhood. I can almost see and hear the child at all times as though the author still retains her childlike view of the world. She was a regular in the Principal's offices of the various schools she attended and suddenly she found a way to get recognition in a positive way after one of her
uncles realizes she fantasizes about gore all the time and turns her on to the gore of literature. She receives her first A on a paper written about the books she has read. Finally years of cutting the heads off of her smurfs and other toys with a guillotine pays off! This book is reminiscent of Augusten Burrows but on a very different economic level and much funnier. This book proves that children at
their core are all the same and don't change much with the times. As a wise custodian in my school told me decades ago, "the world is complex now and kids are growing up faster, the world has changed radically, but the kids are the same as they always were." Lot's of truth there. One thing for sure, I can't think of any grandparent or parent on the planet who will be happy with the possibility that their offspring will say these kinds of things about them several decades after they have moved on. You can't even imagine the irreverence for the foibles and shortcomings of family until Wendy dishes the dirt on her very blue blood,
social register and DAR but very human brood until you read this book. The ending spirals down in a not funny way and is appropriate as she wants to show that the
generations that come after so much money often accomplish much less.

(less)

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Apr 02, 2010 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: ebooks

I don't think I've ever stayed up until the wee hours so that I could finish a memoir. A novel, yes, but a memoir? Never.

However, not only is this written so that you feel that Wendy Burden is talking to you over some cups of tea, but the life she led as seen through her eyes, is out of the realms that most of us have ever known. She maintains a delicious irony throughout. She doesn't present herself as a saint or a victim, just as a mischievous little girl who happened to have this kind of moth...more

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Mar 02, 2011 Jake rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had an incredibly visceral reaction to this book that actually took a few days to manifest, so bear with me when I try to describe it.

The first three quarters of the book are pithy, witty satire on Burden's family of means, and the sarcasm and biting humor of her observation are the source of sizable laughter. She describes everyone around her in a detached but mostly sympathetic light; an occasional dark note regarding her relationships surface. In short, I loved the book for the lion's share...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Lesley rated it 1 of 5 stars

I got an early copy from a friend. Paris Hilton is a better writer. A waste of time.

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 26, 2013 Karen rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually enjoyed it. The weird subject matter was right up my alley, and I enjoyed Burden's style of writing, but in the end it felt like a hobbled together series of family stories that didn't go anywhere. I appreciated that the book didn't have a "woe is me poor rich girl" tone, but there were a few disturbing aspects to the book. A couple of chapters reveal a naive and casual racism that was kind of disturbing, and though her Grandparents were far...more

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Sep 01, 2011 Yvann S rated it 3 of 5 stars

“Sepulchrally dismal, she was the three-dimensional equivalent of woe.”

My third memoir for the year, Wendy Burden’s Dead End Gene Pool is a dizzying ride through the lives of the ultra-rich descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, starting briefly with her grandparents’ antecedents, focussing for quite some time on Wendy’s childhood, which was heavily influenced by her paternal grandparents, and moving into her teenage and student years.

The first half of this book was highly comic – Wendy recounting...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Melissa rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: memior, nonfiction

This book is called humorous in all the blurbs, but I found it very sad. Books about dysfunctional families usually seem tragic, rather than amusing. Burden does know how to twist a funny phrase, but I have trouble laughing at acoholism, suicides and drug addiction. There were also parts of this book that I skipped over with my nose wrinkled, because Burden (not surprisingly) has no filter.

This book advertises itself as being about the Vanderbilt family, but actually it hardly mentions them. It'...more

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Nov 01, 2010 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Turns out the rich ARE different, and not in a good way. SO not in a good way. Wendy Burden's memoir of her childhood in the prison of Vanderbilt riches and expectations is touted as hilariously funny, and perhaps it is, if you can overlook the sheer tragedy of a small child trying to cope with a parent's suicide, rampant family alcoholism, her mother's sex addiction and other miseries too numerous to numerate. Call me bleeding heart, but I have several daughters, and I found this memoir, satiri...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Wendy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, light-reading, memoir, non-fiction

This was a really fast read and I was immediatel drawn into the story. Wendy Burden grew up as the quintessential poor little rich girl, but her memoir is not written in a feeling sorry for herself tone. She fully acknowledges the aspects of her life that were privileged, but does not sugar coat the many parts that were far from idyllic. Her father commited suiced when she was only 6 and her mother did not exactly make parenting a priority. Alcoholism, bi-polar disorder and liberal use of prescr...more

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May 28, 2011 Elle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well this is a complicated book about a complicated family, the Vanderbuilts. The author portrays an eccentric and dysfunctional upbringing amidst great fortune. Yes, the rich are different. But it is the seething hatred of her family that most comes across in this book. Wendy spends her childhood racking up resentments against every single person she comes in contact with, from grandparents to mother to brothers to nurses and governesses and chauffeurs, chefs. Nobody is spared. Why is she so an...more

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May 14, 2011 Scott Fuchs rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those interested in the uber-rich

Shelves: biography

Within the framework of the uber-rich (Vanderbilts [transportation] and Burdens [iron]) there lurks a tale of yet another inordinately f-----ouled up family.
I gotta say that this is the first book in a very long time that has made me laff out loud, at least a dozen times. Much of the rest of the time I had a grin on my face. Some of the instances of the flagrant disposal of dollars makes me doubt their veracity, but hell, they were rich, rich, rich. As verified by many histories, at the peak of...more

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Apr 14, 2010 Denise rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, non-fiction, read-in-2010

Over the years I've discovered that it is not the life an author has lived that makes a good memoir, it's the writing. A middle-aged woman living a middle-income life in any given city can - if she has talent - write an engaging memoir that will be a pleasure to read and recommend to others.

Sadly, this book is neither engaging nor a pleasure to read. Ms Burden has no doubt led an interesting life, but her writing style is forced and over-written. In what I assume are attempts to shock the reade...more

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Apr 10, 2010 Caitlin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

This belongs firmly to that family of memoirs where the story is driven by the weird people in the writer's immediate family. Everyone wanders around sort of goggle-eyed and mad, as if they were permanently trapped in a Wes Anderson movie. Auguten Burroughs famously does this in Running with Scissors, but David Sedaris is also really good at it as is my personal favorite Gerald Durrell. Done well these are funny books, but also knowing books. It is essential that the author treat the people popu...more

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Mar 23, 2011 Evan Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars

In the vein of a recent streak of memoirs by the children of monied families (e.g. Cheerful Money), this book too often attempts to make a spoiled (the author's word) youth seem like a hardship. Somehow all the stories in the beginning of the book ring false. The real tragedy and horror is only revealed at the end when the author, finally, stops obliquely alluding to her father's death and her mother's role in it. It is a long, long road filled with relationships that are fractured and confusing...more

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About Wendy Burden

Wendy Burden is a confirmed New Yorker who, to her constant surprise, lives in Portland, Oregon. She is the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which qualifies her to comment freely on the downward spiral of blue blood families. She has worked as an illustrator, a zookeeper, and a taxidermist; and as an art director for a pornographic magazine from which she was fired fo...more

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