In a recent review by Foreword Magazine, it was noted that Peaches & Daddy "is a story worthy of inclusion in Ripley’s Believe it or Not." Truth can be stranger than fiction and the marriage between 52 year old Manhattan millionaire, Edward "Daddy" Browning and his teenage paramour, Frances "Peaches" Heenan in 1926, became a legendary American story, though now lost in the torrent of history. It is a forgotten jewel of a bygone era. The story, as the sub-title suggests, captured the heart and imagination of the American public like no other story of its day. The tabloids screamed every salacious detail of the forbidden romance and relished in its ultimate demise. When the marriage, doomed from the start, erupted into the "trial of the century," money and social class were pitted against greed and connivance, and the whole world tuned in for a look.Beyond the voyeuristic details of the story, however, lies a plethora of questions that resonate in the reader's mind. Peaches and Daddy broached a whole range of social, cultural, and journalistic issues that thrive to this day. In the various book clubs I have attended that featured Peaches & Daddy as their subject, the inevitable questions as to Daddy Browning's character and intentions have been raised. Was he "as free from guile as a new-laid egg and as innocent of evil thinking as an unshucked scallop" as some have suggested, or were his actions and objectives more sinister in nature. Was he nothing more than a philanthropic and paternal figure or, as some have alleged, a lecherous fiend with a dangerous predilection for young girls. The reader will find evidence to support either contention and thus the topic is fertile ground for discussion.
I am happy to introduce you to Peaches & Daddy, and it is my hope that you will indeed partake in that discussion.
Please check out http://www.peachesanddaddy.com/, and, of course, order Peaches & Daddy from Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Peaches-Daddy-Courtship-Captured-Imaginations/dp/1590200462
