Come with me and we’ll escape into a world that is no more, but must have been lovely while it lasted. We’ll see it through the eyes of Carol Buckley who, in At the Still Point, remembers life as the youngest of ten children in a family of notables and achievers.

Daddy Buckley had a golden thumb. With his money, he housed his large Catholic brood in a country house in Connecticut; that is, when they were not in residence at their equally grand digs in South Carolina. Or sometimes they lived abroad, which is where some of the famous Buckleys picked up their vaguely British accents.

It was a life of luxury liner vacations where Carol, at age fourteen, possessed all the know-how, all the matching shoes and pearl-encrusted evening bags to dress for dinner each night. Mind you, etiquette required a different outfit each evening.

What might have kept the Buckleys a little more humble than their WASP-y Connecticut neighbors was the newness of their money, as well as the fact that Daddy made it in the ghastly back country of Texas. Not to mention the Catholicism and the ten kids.

Carol was not only the baby of the family, but the caboose baby. She missed running with the pack, and didn’t even know some of the family legends until death picked off a few family members before their time.

When it came time for those important mother/daughter talks, Carol got some bare-bones instructions from the governess, at least.

Eventually, she married a man who missed no opportunity to dash off on Field & Stream vacations. She married another who provided her with the life of New York society matron.

Somewhere in there, she discovered alcohol. “A little buzz every night goes a long way. It blurs — it lets you pretend.” Carol got buzzed and then some on more than a few nights.

Along the way, she watched her brother, Bill, founder of National Review magazine, grow into a celebrity. And, as I said earlier, some family members were struck down much too young.

Did the family money hold out? Is the life of a governess-raised New York society matron fulfilling, or caving in with a gnawing emptiness? Is there any way back from liking that buzz every night?

That’s for you to find out.