I knew nothing of the photographer Diane Arbus’s life before reading this fascinating biography, but had somehow assumed that she came from a poor background. On the contrary, she grew up in a vast apartment on Park Avenue with three nannies, two maids, a cook and a chauffeur. Her father, David Nemerov, owned a famous New York department store, Russeks, where the staff always treated her like a princess. She was the apple of her father’s eye, but her mother, a self-absorbed beauty, showed little interest in her children.
Diane, born in 1923, was the middle child, with an elder brother, Howard, to whom she was close, and a much younger sister, Renée, whom she ignored. Her brother’s closeness was perhaps more than fraternal; Diane