American Notebook | 10 March 2016

I have been driving many hundreds of miles across America, interviewing Vietnam veterans for a book. Though I have been doing this sort of thing for 40 years, the fascination of the serendipity persists. I meet an extraordinary variety of people, way outside my usual social round. Some talk in modest bungalows, others in motels, one last week in a conspicuously wealthy gated community. Many rich Americans now live in such places — essentially their own country clubs, fortified by wired perimeters. The one that I visited covered 6,000 acres, with lots of lakes and a golf course. There is excellent food in the clubhouse, skeet ranges, riding stables and a small army of black staff. The notional population, mainly elderly, is around 400, though most inmates live there only a few months in the year, between vacations. Everybody appears wonderfully friendly, even at breakfast in the clubhouse. My host said that he likes living among his peer group: there are no great ego clashes, because all the residents enjoy the same sort of status and income level, which enabled us to sample Ch.