Customer Reviews

Fool's Paradise: Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fool's Paradise is a well written book about the hidden history of Miami Beach. I especially enjoyed Chapter Eleven, " The Mayor of South Beach." After finishing Steven Gaine's manuscript, where he mentions Mayor Alex Daoud and his unexpurgated book "Sins of South Beach", The True Story of Violence, Corruption, Murder and the Making of Miami Beach. I purchased the Mayor's story. All I can say is "WOW". The author a three time Miami Beach City Commissioner and former three time Mayor uses real names, real crimes, and real people. I'm surprised that he was able to do that. It is a very revealing, interesting and shocking read. I highly recommend both books, they enhance each other.

Good "read"! Very informative re: HISTORY OF MIA. BEACH, most of which I knew re: the past. It was interesting to read the "behind" the scenes stories re: MAJOR DEVELOPERS.

History of how Miami Beach has come and gone and come again as the Party Mecca of the rich and famous and not so rich and not so famous. Fun reading especially if you were at the Beach and saw the degradation of South Beach in the 70s & 80s and how it changed and became the "it place" to be and be seen.

Steven Gaines has captured the esoteric secrets of South Beach in his compulsively readable Fool's Paradise. His story telling ability is sensational and the revelations are shocking. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has ever visited, lived or heard of South Beach.

Alex Daoud
Three-time Mayor of Miami Beach
Author Sins of South Beach

Great book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the history of Miami Beach and about the current club scene. It's a sexy book filled with scandal and interesting info. I highly recommend it.

I own property and live in the historic Art Deco District in South Beach. And finally I have a book that is just all-too-perfect to give to friends who have visited or plan to visit. Lenny Bruce once said, "Miami Beach is where neon goes to die" (quoted by Steven Gaines at the beginning of chapter three). Maybe it does, but this books goes a long way in making the reader aware that the neon is alive and well here in South Beach. What I like in a book is a grand beginning. Nothing could beat the opening chapter of this page-turner, a re-telling of a thirteen-year-old's bat mitzvah (she is really not Jewish!) that could only happen here. And then, having hooked the reader, the author in wonderful prose gives us a ride through the history of this place which a century ago was uninhabited by humans. The reader will meet the most amazing cast of people from the very rich who built hotels such as the Fontainebleau to the amazing woman who had the vision to fight to make our art deco an historic national treasure. I once taught the son of the mayor the reader will meet, a man with an enormous appetite for life. In fact the entire cast in this book has that enormous appetite. Not until I read the book did I realize this: we have no cemeteries! None! This is not just a book for those who live here or come here for the sun, the fun (meaning booze, drugs and sex). Oh, no, this is a book for everyone. Wrap yourself in a mink stole, turn on the neon, and enjoy some wonderfully entertaining and enlightening pages of life as it was and as it is in the place where neon does not come to die. And for those without the mink, then do it naked, just to get the feel of the place where nightclubs stay open until the sun comes up.

Great book. It's a fast read with lots of juicy details about the Miami Beach scene - and you don't have to be from Miami to enjoy it! It's a perfect book for a rainy day.

Readers must wade through the first 175 pages to reach material about the current South Beach, and then we finally hear about the party promoters and the clubs that rule the beach today and in the recent past. Before that, it's a lot of ancient history about such topics as the Fountainblue Hotel, but nothing about its recent redevelopment as the party mecca of the beach. This book gets off to a very slow start, but those who stick with it will be rewarded by capsule looks at such key figures as Barbara Capitman, who is credited with saving the art deco hotels, and a former mayor who took all kinds of bribes. I lived in a West Avenue condo in Sobe from 06 to 08, and I first fell in love with Sobe in the mid-80s when its potential was still just that, so I didn't learn as much as I had hoped from this book. The real South Beach is hidden from most of the tourists and even normal residents who don't frequent the clubs or venues like the Forge for Wednesday party nights. The Sobe of today is really quite dull and dirty compared to its heyday of the 80s and 90s. The best book about Sobe has yet to be written. This is just ok.

I bought this book after having devoured Laurence Leamer's "Madness Under the Royal Palms" about Palm Beach, FLA. I also loved Gaines' previous book about the Hamptons. Unfortunately, "Fool's Paradise" is a snoozer. The first half of the book deals almost exclusively with real estate and development. Hardly the "juicy, gossipy read" that the reviews stated aside from a tidbit here and there about someone's poor etiquette or behavior. I find myself continually falling asleep while trying to get into this book. Also, for so much of the book being centered around the real estate- why are there hardly any pictures of the real estate? I would have like to have seen photos of the Eden Roc and the Fontainebleau and the Art Deco buildings of South Beach in their heyday considering 4 to 5 chapters are about them. But, no, just a random scattering of weird pictures of people mentioned occassionally. This book claims to be about the "players, poseurs, and the culture" but it's really seems to be more regurgitated stories about the "rise and fall of Miami real estate." I wouldn't recommend it unless perhaps you lived there at some point or plan on it.

For decades, Miami Beach has provided an escape: for snowbirds, to get away from the cold of winter; for gangsters, a place to get things done without much interference; for beautiful people, a place to show off with few inhibitions. Steven Gaines captures these and more in his book, Fool's Paradise: Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach. Gaines tells the story of the hoteliers, the Art Deco preservationists, the nightclub operators, gangsters, druggies, models and politicians. Fool's Paradise is packed with interesting characters, and unlike the title, not nearly enough excess to please those readers who want to know even more than Gaines tells. If you've ever been to Miami Beach, you're likely to enjoy this story of places and people that will be familiar. If you've not visited, here's a way to experience the place vicariously and not get sunburned while you think about what you're missing.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)