As we drive off the ferry my wife, Cathlin Baker, turns to me and says, “Don’t mind me, I have an extreme sense of well-being.” She then proceeds to chatter and laugh, even waving occasionally to strangers in cars beside us as we wait in traffic on our way to Boston.

The Harbor View Hotel closes down during the last two weeks of the year. But notice the lights blazing in the penthouse apartment. This is the home of Bob Carroll and has been ever since he sold the hotel in 1986. It was part of the contract that Mr. Carroll could build this penthouse and live in it until he died. And for two weeks each winter, during the holidays, he is the only soul alive in the hotel.

Carly Simon, especially for those who live on or visit Martha’s Vineyard, is a bold-faced name. In fact, she has been famous for so long it is as if she were born famous; biding her time in the womb, say, by humming the first bars of Anticipation. Such is the price of fame, this distorted view by those on the outside looking in. We see only the finished product, the glamorous stage presence, so natural, again as if she had rocked her own delivery room with a chorus of You’re So Vain. But this is a false picture, one that does not include the shy stutterer who achieved her success the old-fashioned way, with a lot of very hard work.