Cinderella Rockefeller

A great-granddaughter of William Rockefeller (John D.'s brother and partner) here recounts her struggle to achieve identity and serenity despite the strictures of her family's wealth and a childhood bereft of parental warmth. The death from cancer of a girlhood friend inspired her to pursue science at college and cancer research counter to obligatory debutante society rituals. Elmer recalls in candid and simplistic detail the frustration of a stormy marriage and the birth of her four children for whom, as expected by her milieu, she forsook her career. Then attendance at a Billy Graham crusade set her on the path to achieving inner peace, according to the author, and led to her conversion to charismatic Christianity and to a vocation as director of social services for a Cape Cod Christian community. Photos. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. (May 11)