Ebook: Ghost of a chance: a memoir

"The story of [Peter] Duchin's life has an elegiac aura of glamour and tragedy that might have come directly from the imagination of F. Scott Fitzgerald."—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This book brings back marvelous memories of a very special time."—Frank Sinatra

Called "a living compendium of a hundred years of social history" by The New York Times Book Review, Peter Duchin has lived through tremendous highs and dismal lows. Orphaned by his glamorous parents, the Newport debutante Marjorie Oelrichs and the famous bandleader Eddy Duchin, he was raised in the privileged, old-money world of Averell Harriman, the diplomat and former governor of New York. He grew up to be one of America's preeminent bandleaders, effortlessly entertaining and charming partygoers at thousands of society galas, from the White House to Truman Capote's Black and White Ball.

In Ghost of a Chance, he looks back on a life that another...