Peter Duchin has been America's top society bandleader for over thirty years. He has played at the White House, at a bar mitzvah on the QE II, at Truman Capote's Black and White Ball, and at thousands of other private and public events. He has observed shifts in social customs from close up, and his account of them is fascinating. But his memoirs are not simply a riveting look at society and show business. They are also the poignant story of a complicated family and a boy who grew up as an outsider in a world of privilege.