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Madness Under the Royal Palms
- Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
Leave it to Laurence Leamer, the best-selling author known for getting the inside story on his elusive subjects, to take us behind the walls of America's most exclusive enclave of wealth and privilege. Here Leamer tells a braided story involving a socialite determined to make it to the top of Palm Beach society, two infamous murders, and a powerful society reporter. As a backdrop, Leamer tells the story of the clash between old money and new, religion and status, and the love, lust, and fatal hatreds that determine the shape of a fiercely protected society. The cast of characters include trophy wives, trophy husbands, purported gigolos, glamorous widows, a pioneering gay couple, a wildly irreverent event planner, a sociopathic multimillionaire, and an elegant society queen. For 100 years, Palm Beach has been a fantasyland nurtured by, and maintained for, the megawealthy.
In the end, Leamer's tale of money, murder, and mad pretension reveals a darker strain. Uncovering that strain, the author writes, "turned into as fascinating, in some cases as shocking, and always as unexpected a journey as I have ever taken."
Critic reviews
"The book's highly visual vignettes dominated by divorce, infidelity, excessive drinking and violence produce a depressing picture of sad, angry, insecure and frequently nasty people hiding behind empty smiles, luxury cars and socially invisible servants." - ( Publishers Weekly)
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A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art, and fashion.
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Well written bio.
- By Minda Leah Kahn on 09-01-18
By: Meryl Gordon
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Lady Bird
- A Biography of Mrs. Johnson
- By: Jan Jarboe Russell
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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A revealing biography of Lady Bird Johnson with startling new insights into her marriage to Lyndon Baines Johnson and her unexpectedly strong impact on his presidency. Long obscured by her husband's shadow, Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson emerges in this first comprehensive biography as a figure of surprising influence and the centering force for LBJ, a man who suffered from extreme mood swings and desperately needed someone to help control his darker impulses.
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Do not waste an audible credit
- By Sandra B. on 10-15-23
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The Royals
- By: Kitty Kelley
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Scores of books have tried and failed to penetrate the royal facade. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind palace walls to provide the first three-dimensional, comprehensive, and evenhanded portrait of the men and women who make up the British Royal family.
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A titillating and delightful insight....
- By SIGHLE on 02-12-16
By: Kitty Kelley
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Wallis in Love
- The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy
- By: Andrew Morton
- Narrated by: Molly Parker Myers
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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For fans of the Netflix series The Crown and from the author of the New York Times best seller 17 Carnations comes a captivating biography of Wallis Simpson, the notorious woman for whom Edward VIII gave up the throne.
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This one is being returned
- By Rita T on 02-15-18
By: Andrew Morton
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Empty Mansions
- The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
- By: Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr.
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.
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Fascinating, But Know This...
- By Karen K on 04-08-15
By: Bill Dedman, and others
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The Curse of Beauty
- The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel
- By: James Bone
- Narrated by: Marianne Fraulo
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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As America was stepping into the modern era, one great beauty became the artist's model of choice. Her perfect form became the emblem of the Gilded Age and appears on the greatest monuments of New York and the nation. Supermodel, actress, icon - her beauty paved the way for a life of glamour, passion, and ultimately tragedy. Her name is Audrey Munson.
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Fascinating
- By Аmazon Customer on 04-06-17
By: James Bone
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The Social Climber's Bible
- A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice for the Upwardly Mobile
- By: Dirk Wittenborn, Jazz Johnson
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome fledging Social Climbers! Allow us to show you the way. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. So what’s the big deal? You shouldn’t be punished for wanting to improve your lot in life! This is America, after all. In the grand tradition of True Prep and The Hipster Handbook, The Social Climber’s Bible will teach you everything you need to know to become a pro Mountaineer.
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so great!
- By Sarah Nissen on 05-15-19
By: Dirk Wittenborn, and others
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Jackie, Ethel, Joan
- Women of Camelot
- By: J. Randy Taraborrelli
- Narrated by: Beth Fowler
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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What does it mean to be a Kennedy? If ever three women would be challenged and changed by marriage into a family, it would be Jacqueline Bouvier, Ethel Skakel, and Joan Bennett. None of these radiant brides could have ever been prepared for the fame, the family, and tragedies that would spring from their lives. As they struggled to cope with their husbands' infidelities, the harsh glare of the media, and the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, these women would learn what it meant to be sisters, reaching out to one another with comfort and consolation.
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my first Kennedy book
- By colleen on 06-15-12
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The World According to Fannie Davis
- My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers
- By: Bridgett M. Davis
- Narrated by: Bridgett M. Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A daughter's moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to "make a way out of no way" to provide a prosperous life for her family - and how those sacrifices resonate over time. This original, timely, and deeply relatable portrait of one American family is essential listening.
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Fantastic
- By BK on 02-15-19
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The Husband Hunters
- American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Towards the end of the 19th century and for the first few years of the 20th, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, 50 years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess", married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage....
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Bondfide Valuable History Lesson
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 09-21-18
By: Anne de Courcy
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Emily Post
- Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
- By: Laura Claridge
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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From the excesses of the late 19th-century Gilded Age, through the horrors of World War I, to the transformations of the Roaring 20s that gave birth to her magisterial Etiquette, Emily Post unfailingly took the measure of her era. A Baltimore blue blood with a populist heart, she helped the masses live the American dream with her hugely popular book, which has been continuously in print for over 85 years.
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Typical for Emily Post
- By Stephanie on 01-07-19
By: Laura Claridge
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Furious Love
- Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century
- By: Sam Kashner, Nancy Schoenberger
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman; she was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Mark Antony. For nearly a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were Hollywood royalty, and their fiery romance - often called "the marriage of the century" - was the most notorious, publicized, and celebrated love affair of its day.
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Paul Boehmer needs more practice
- By Brenda Miller on 06-16-10
By: Sam Kashner, and others
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You need to know a bit about the players
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A good story
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On a Thursday morning in May 1961, a well-mannered twenty-one-year-old named Marlene enters the Fifth Avenue apartment of Lee Radziwill to interview for the position of housekeeper and cook. The stylish wife of London-based Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, Princess Lee is intelligent and creative, with ambitions beyond simply jet-setting. But to the public, she is always First Lady Jackie Kennedy's little sister. As Marlene becomes a trusted presence in the Radziwill household, she observes the dazzling array of famous figures who flit in and out of Lee’s intimate circle
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Too Much Servant, Not Enough Truman and Lee
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When Ann Woodward shot her husband, banking heir Billy Woodward, in the middle of the night in 1955, her life changed forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few believed the woman who had risen from charismatic showgirl to popular socialite. Everyone had something to say about the scorching scandal afflicting one of the most rich and famous families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote.
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offensive narration
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Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu
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Looking at the island of Palm Beach today, with its unmatched mansions, tony shops, and pristine beaches, one is hard pressed to visualize the dense tangle of Palmetto brush and mangroves that it was when visionary entrepreneur and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler first arrived there in April 1893. With the authority and narrative prose style that has gained Standiford's work widespread acclaim, Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu tells the history of this fabled landscape intertwined with the colorful lives of its famous protagonists.
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Excellent history of Palm Beach
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Waste of money
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The Plaza is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century.
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Don't need your politics, Julie
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Reckless Hearts (Short Story)
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Spain, 1959. Slim Hawks Hayward likes to think she doesn’t get jealous. But when her dear friend Lauren “Betty” Bacall learns that Papa Hemingway has come to watch the bullfights and insists that Slim make introductions, she can’t help feeling protective. Slim has known Papa for years. He always makes her feel like the most beautiful woman in the room—even when his wife is standing right beside him. Truth be told, Slim could have learned to love him all those years ago, in the streets of Havana or the mountains of the American West.
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Slim tale
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How did the Wendels, one of New York’s most famous Gilded Age families, disappear from history? The Wendels built a fortune from New York real estate, and rubbed shoulders with the Astors, Vanderbilts, and Stuyvesants. But as the 19th century came to an end, the Wendel family tore itself apart. Following six years of painstaking archival research, Claire Prentice has prised open the door of the Wendels’ Fifth Avenue mansion—dubbed “the house of mystery” by the press—to reveal a fascinating and dysfunctional family imprisoned in a gilded cage.
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Kept Waiting for it to be Interesting
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Sons of Camelot
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In this outstanding continuation of The Kennedy Men, his powerful American epic of the Kennedy family, Laurence Leamer chronicles the lives of the Kennedy sons and grandsons after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and their struggle to fulfill the family legacy. These lives make for a book of overwhelming drama full of exalted aspirations, notable achievements, and the most spectacular mishaps, excesses, and tragedies. For the most part, these Kennedy men fell far short of the great vision that Joseph P. Kennedy had for his sons and grandsons.
By: Laurence Leamer
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Heiresses
- The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies
- By: Laura Thompson
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Heiresses: Surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions.
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Too much fluff
- By JESSICA BAUER on 09-02-22
By: Laura Thompson
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Capote
- A Biography
- By: Gerald Clarke
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
First published in 1988 - just four years after Capote's death - Clarke paints a vivid behind-the-scenes picture of the author's life, based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the man himself and the people close to him. From the glittering heights of notoriety and parties with the rich and famous to his later struggles with addiction, Capote emerges as a richly multidimensional person - both brilliant and flawed.
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the brightest stars can self destruct
- By Jared_S on 09-22-21
By: Gerald Clarke
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The Riviera Set
- Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society
- By: Mary S. Lovell
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The Riviera Set reveals the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped, and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of 40 years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of dynamic group was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château.
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Riviera Set
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What listeners say about Madness Under the Royal Palms
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Schneida Charles
- 10-14-23
Fantastic book
Money defamation murder suicide! It had everything. A fabulous read. Five stars all the way
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Overall
- kk
- 09-29-09
Just what I've been waiting for
For those of us who "havenot" a must read (listen) for anyone who loves the tabloid-esque scandals of the Palm Beach rich. I love that the stories are scandalously current, unlike the old recycled stories we've heard countless times. Fantastic! Keep 'em coming!! ten stars not five!!!!
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5 people found this helpful
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Master Story Telling
I quickly picked up this book after reading Mar A Lago because I love the way this writer writes, and the narration is truly fabulous. The same narrator here also. This book was much wittier and at times my ribs hurt and tears rolled down my cheeks as I laughed uncontrollably. So many very interesting tales packed into this book. The writer is able to write and permit the reader to draw their own conclusions without becoming an interruption with his own attitudes and opinions. I feel as if I am remote viewing when he tells a tale. He recreates people and situations with such clarity and with views from comfortable angles, for the most part. Some stories are more shocking than others, such as a two-year-old child drowning in a pool, written off as collateral damage with sadistic disregard, from an extramarital affair. The writer walks you through labyrinths of illusion, self-importance, and insatiable needs. The burdens of "rank" and "status" that cause people continuous compromises with integrity. And lets you rest in the distances between the Haves and Have Nots. I only wish this was volume one of a twenty volume set.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kali
- 09-27-20
Toxic, desperate people
A raw, unvarnished account of a society that could have gone on for volumes because social circles such as this one described in Palm Beach, FL change characters over time but never die, and they have existed all over the world for centuries.
This is more than just a tale of frivolity, this book exposes ruthless evil that is as toxic and vile as it gets.
There is good historical content; however, there was an error regarding The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The author said that they resided in Bermuda, when in fact in 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas. He and the Duchess resided in Nassau for the remainder of the war.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Julius Pepperwood
- 03-17-23
Not a true crime book, but ok.
For some reason, I had the impression this was a true crime book. It's not, but it's somewhat interesting nonetheless, but it's just a story about awful, rich people doing terrible things to each other.
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- Jay Lynn Walker
- 05-23-23
A somewhat jaundiced view but still worthwhile
At times I grew pretty weary of the author’s rants on the bias against Jews in Palm Beach, as though it were still going on as it had been in much earlier days. This became tiresome, as at times he seemed to disapprove of just about everything and everyone in the town. But overall, I found this book engaging and well-written, so much so that I have even begun to think of visiting there some time soon. Recommended.
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- J. W.
- 12-26-23
I love the research
This book was amazing! Such amazing stories told in such a well researched way! Love the narrator as well. I just went to look up more books by this author. I’m now a huge fan!
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- Diane
- 04-13-09
Madness under the royal palms
Very good, I found myself looking online while reading to look up the people and places being mentioned in the book. The author kept me wanting to hear more.
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- Karen Syed
- 02-19-10
A cacophony of gossip
Extravagant dinner parties at culturally prejudice clubs, and homophobic cronies who rule their domain with an iron fist and no mercy shine. Leamer takes us back to when the rich and political went to Palm Beach for seclusion and solace and mingled without worry of the filth of the lower class and Jews. Leamer spends a lot of time reminding us of the socially outcast community not welcome in paradise. The Palm Beach residents discover all too soon, nothing stays the same. The old die and the new take over. For most people, old money spends no differently than new, it just doesn't smell as musty.
Leamer tells of the infighting, the betrayals, and of the power of the cutting edge of the "Shiny Sheet," the local gossip/society column that could literally make or break a man or a woman. From the disgraces of social etiquette revealed at million dollar fund raisers to the erotic and unequaled bashes of the more recent residents. It never ceases to amaze me how writers find it such an easy tool to single out those who are different and try to cast them in a light that intimates that they are actually better than what they are, or worse at it were. In the case of Madness Under the Royal Palms, it is the Jews and the homosexuals.
Not a bad book. It was more than a little interesting in a hangnail kind of way. You know it'll hurt when you pull the skin, but you keep playing with it. I couldn't stop, but only because my morbid sense of curiosity kept at me. At the end of the book I don't know how Laurence Leamer fit into it all.
The betrayal seemed minimal and I found the stories not nearly as scandalous as sad. The way the residents, past and present, are portrayed is more pathetic than unique. The mental instability and lack of values give me cause to celebrate my ordinary existence. The deaths in this book, nothing spectacular. Just dead.
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- Bonnie
- 04-24-15
Nothing but gossip.
I only finished reading it because it was for a book club. The author writes like he's an onlooker of this society, but he's right in the thick of the lives of the society that he stereotypes negatively in every word.
I live in west palm beach, the "other" side of the water and am wondering who will write about the law suits this book should stir up.
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