But what the hell, I told myself, it wasn't as if I were one of them or even competing with them, for heaven's sake, I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life. The scientist dropping into the zoo at feeding time. That is what I told myself.

Dundy grew up in a Park Avenue home where Elaine Dundy was educated by a governess though Elaine Dundy eventually attended high school where her boyfriend Terry was the son of playwright Maxwell Anderson. " Kirkus Reviews described it as "the most fine-grained Elvis bio ever. In 1950 Elaine Dundy met the theater critic Kenneth Tynan and two weeks later they began living together.