Book excerpt: This work "describes a world that has long been of great fascination to readers-the enormously wealthy, philanthropic German Jews often referred to as 'Our Crowd'." This is the story of Peggy and Alan Gutheim and their three children; Phil, the Gutheim scion who has followed his father into law, Carl, quiet and gifted pianist, and finally of "Joan, the child of privilege, whose efforts to become her own person and still be her parents' pride and joy take on tragic dimensions."