In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy Burden , who is distantly related to Gloria Vanderbilt, writes of growing up in a wealthy dysfunctional family. After her father's suicide, Wendy and her brothers were shunted between their alcoholic mother's home and their grandparents' estate but were mostly raised by the nanny and other servants. One of her uncles had a Hitler fetish. Two of the adults she grew up with behaved inappropriately towards her. Wendy was a strange child who took Wednesday Addams as her role model. Nevertheless, she fared better than her brothers. Perhaps this is due to the dark sense of humor that permeates her memoir. At a well-attended meeting, members of the Nonfiction Book Club gave this book an average rating of 3.9.