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The favored granddaughter of IBM’s Thomas J. Watson reveals a life of glamour, depressive battles, hard-won joy, and peace.
Born into a celebrity family (her father was Watson’s son, who turned the company into the powerhouse it still is today, and her mother, Olive, had dated Howard Hughes and John F. Kennedy), Jeannette Watson’s larger than life parents hid a multitude of secrets. Behind a façade of order and glamour, Tom Watson often experienced dark moods; his depression was something he passed on to his daughter. Jeannette felt she could never measure up to her mother—a legendary beauty—and kept her nose buried in books.
“With straightforward, unadorned writing, Jeannette Watson’s memoir is a riveting, unputdownable journey of self-discovery, sensitive yet painfully honest, and sure to attract legions of readers.”
—Lenny Golay, Co-owner, The Corner Bookstore, NYC
It’s My Party is a portrait of another era, a guide to dealing with depression, and one woman’s deep effort to understand herself.
Watch Jeannette’s Sizzle!
Praise & Reviews
“In this charming memoir, Watson, the former proprietor of Manhattan’s bookstore Books & Co., reflects upon her remarkable, troubled life as the granddaughter of IBM’s founder and daughter of Thomas Watson, who ushered the corporation to wide success. Born in 1945, one of six children, Watson used books to escape, not just reading them but “inhabiting” them. In spite of her idyllic surroundings (a seven-acre family estate in Greenwich, Conn., with a pony and 30 dolls; an impressive summer home in Maine), Watson was wary of her father’s tempestuous nature; without warning, he could fly into a rage. The shy and sensitive Watson was often depressed, though she enjoyed observing her parents’ social life and well-known guests; her mother, a former model, had dated Jack Kennedy, and Ted’s and Bobby’s families visited. After coming out as a debutante (to a 13-piece band), attending a private high school, and studying at Sarah Lawrence, the author married and had a child; her postpartum depression landed her in a sanatorium where she received electroshock treatments. The memoir balances the bleak periods with tales of exciting travels with her parents, her interest in fashion and fashionable people, and her love of literature. Watson’s colorful descriptions recreate a singular era and gently probe the darker currents that run deeply beneath the surface of wealth and privilege.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Legendary bookstore proprietor Jeannette Watson has written a remarkable memoir full of insight, humor, and heartfelt reflection to convey a life lived to its very fullest. Sanger’s voice is clear and precise as she leads us on a marvelous and moving tour of the ups and downs of her charmed life. It’s My Party is a must read!”
—Todd Colby, Store Manager, 192 Books, New York City
“Jeannette Watson has lived a slice of American history both uniquely personal and in other ways common to the lives of millions. It is her attention to the smaller details in her life that ultimately illuminates the extraordinary scope of her experience. Hers is a very feminine, very American story, and very meaningful story.”
— Marianne Williamson
“What a delicious lovely shimmering dream of a book.”
—Susan Cheever
“With straightforward, unadorned writing, Jeannette Watson’s memoir is a riveting, unputdownable journey of self-discovery, sensitive yet painfully honest, and sure to attract legions of readers.”
—Lenny Golay, Co-owner, The Corner Bookstore, New York City
“With great candor and more than a little impetuous glee, the author pulls back the curtain on her remarkable upbringing. Each of the chapters in her book, and in her life, have at the root the insatiable curiosity of a lifelong, intrepid explorer.”
—Susan Scott, Adult Book Buyer, Secret Garden Bookshop, Seattle
“There’s a thrill in store for all” is how the IBM rally song begins — prescient words! Jeannette Watson’s lovely and moving memoir describes a childhood that was fraught and lonely, despite privilege, a father’s explosive and unpredictable temper, and, worse still, bouts of depression. How such an accomplished and beautiful woman emerges — perhaps not totally unscathed – from this to heal herself and to heal others and find happiness is at the heart of this engrossing and brave tale.”
—Lily Tuck
“Being the daughter of a man who changed the world is hardly a free ride. In her exquisitely nuanced memoir, Jeannette Watson proves that coming of age is a process (given any luck at all) that never stops. It’s My Party is brave, beautiful and devilishly funny.”
—Patricia Volk
“In It’s My Party Jeannette Watson give us a privileged peek into what it was like growing up in a family famous for transforming American industry. With wit, charm, and a dash of rock and roll, she takes us on the inspiring journey of her personal transformation as well.”
—Kevin Kwan, bestselling author of “Crazy Rich Asians”
“In gorgeous detail Jeannette Watson tells the story of navigating the wilds of the fifties, sixties and seventies as the daughter of a famous beauty and a famous and difficult father with all of it’s emotional complexity. Filled with adroit character sketches and keen insights, Watson’s “It’s My Party” brings the time vividly back. A joy to read.”
—Susan Brind Morrow
“We are the offspring of gods and goddesses, and Jeannette Watson was even more so. Her father was the legendary Tom Watson of IBM. Her Mother was a famous beauty who had dated the young Jack Kennedy when she was a teenager and had been courted by Howard Hughes. The king and queen of Thailand borrowed the family’s house in Maine for a little vacation. Kennedys and celebrities drifted in and out of the story, and Jeannette’s father jauntily flew his own plane through blizzards and drove his sailboat through hurricanes. All this was sometimes tough to handle. Growing up shyly in the midst of large and glamorous worlds, Jeannette Watson felt both privileged and vulnerable. An endearing, sensitive, intelligent, bookish girl, she would later open the world’s best bookstore, Books & Co. on Madison Avenue. Like her father, she was given to sometimes harrowing bouts of depression. In her vivid memoir—loving and funny, sometimes shadowed—presidents and kings and family trips around the world alternate with 77 Sunset Strip and TV dinners and Howdy Doody and discussions of which Beatle was the cutest. The Watson house in Greenwich had a bomb shelter in the basement, and her father gave her $100 cash, with instructions, in the event of nuclear attack, to make her way from Miss Hall’s School to the family ski lodge in Vermont. It is the personal record of an epoch and an America now mostly gone, and of the author’s eventual emergence into a splendid life entirely her own.”
—Lance Morrow