This book is available at your local flea market or thrift shop under any number of covers, but the content remains the same. Palm Beach Babylon is an unexpectedly entertaining read which gives the short, condensed version of the various scandals amongst the interbreeding rich and famous of sunny Palm Beach, Florida, spanning from the time the resort town was founded by Henry Morrison Flagler in 1894 up until the William Kennedy Smith*/Patricia Bowman rape case in 1991.
Surprisingly enough, the authors, despite being both from the New York Post, actually use words with three or more syllables, and write relatively long sentences with correct punctuation. While there is nothing new or especially insightful added to the various events narrated, the chapters make an easier, more entertaining read than the many long-winded books from which the two reporters gather most of their information. Get the dirt on how none of the Kennedys can keep their weenies in their pants, how Leona Helmsley drives her hubby Harry to try to kill her, how Isadora Duncan screws around with “The Real McCoy” and pumps Paris Singers for all she can, 
how Larry Flint rents a dowager’s mansion for location photography and wild parties, and more, more, more.A good book for the subway, bathroom, doctor’s office or anywhere else one is continually required to sit and wait. More photos would have been nice, though – the ones found here were, of course, all trawled off the web.
*He was acquitted of the charges in 1991, but 13 years later in 2004 he was back in court in Chicago when a former personal assistant by the name of Audra Soulias also charged him of rape, but the case was dismissed in 2005. The smoking Gun has a nice and sleazy article on the latter event here.
1 comment:
It was obvious you had to overcome a mountain of prejudices before you swallowed hard and had to compliment the book since the writers (once) worked at the New York Post. And by the way, it also took a mountain of research to study and was not, as you suggest, pieced together from the web, which I do not think was barely alive when William Kennedy Smith was sensationally charged, and later acquitted. But thanks for coming around to applauding the writing and insights.
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