Customer Reviews

Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Given the name and uber wealthy playground about which Madness was written, I was expecting an oblique assault on an elitist and secretive sliver of society suspected of profligate spending, narcissism and caste systems.

Instead, I found that the book is more of an amusing anthropological study that offered layers of depth and insight into individuals, relationships and social groups. The result is a humorous parable with some heavy moral lessons.

Leamer used multiple sources to build a penetrating character analysis of some of the more notable Palm Beach residents who, as an aggregate, are symbols of the various cliques that define the essence of Palm Beach.

NON-FICTION THAT READS LIKE FICTION
While it's a non fiction work, it has the literary ardor, flow, and the readability of a sticky novel you can't put down. The structure and clever collation of the vignettes is a thing of genius; like a movie that presents a montage of time periods in a character's life, Leamer seamlessly builds the story, jumping from one vignette to the next, and then taking us backwards and forwards in time. As you move through the book, the building of the individual events sculpts the big picture, and lives are viewed through different lenses. The result is a story that comes together so artfully, that it's hard to believe it's non fiction. For this reason, among others, Leamer has become my favorite contemporary writer.

STORIES THAT WILL MAKE YOU CRINGE
As Leamer draws us into his world and follows the lives of the characters, like with Aesop's Fables, we cannot help but predict the tragic outcomes of the paths they have chosen. The irony here is that these are real people, illustrating that the tragic flaw of humanity is our inability to step outside our selves and get past the artificial world of our own construct. This is the real-life version of Faust, and a lesson in perception, misperception and mortality. Some of the characters were blessed with not surviving to read about their own catastrophic social failures.

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES' IS NOT ENOUGH
Money seems to be the fulcrum in the lives of the residents, an ends and not a means. Greed is the corrupting factor that invariably crushes relationships, family, trust and trust funds. In a twist of the plot, however, money is the engine that fuels their existence, and yet it is still a limiting factor on the island. For the very privileged, social status is determined by caste, not wealth alone. You can keep up with the Jones', but they'll never have you over for dinner. The elite must maintain their exclusivity at all cost. The "caste" of characters is so colorful and the world so utterly bizarre, that it is hard to fathom such a place exists.

It's the American Dream stretched to extremes, at which point it becomes distorted and absurd. We get the special insight and understanding from an author who has lived among these people for fourteen years.

After putting down Leamer's new book, I was reminded of the profound statement that some ascribe to Samuel Johnson: "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

Leamer's Madness Under the Royal Palms is a must read for anyone aspiring to "achieve" the American Dream. This book might put things in perspective and make you a little more satisfied with your lot in life.

I live in palm Beach and saw a copy because a friend of mine was mentioned in it and once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It's absolutely fascinating and filled with interesting little stories. I don't think you have to live here to enjoy it.
It reminded me of "Midnight in the Garden of Eden," only there were more characters in this one so it was a very lively read. Very definitely recommended for those who like to read about the rise and fall of the rich.

I hadn't planned to comment on this book but after reading the existing "five star" comments I felt that some balance was required. The book is presented as an "insiders" look at Palm Beach by an author who has lived there for more than a decade. However, as with any community, there are different social circles. The author has far more access to what I would characterize as low level hustlers, most that he met on "public" tennis courts (hardly Palm Beach exclusivity) but apparently no real access to the "establishment" per se. The author does a commendable job in bringing these characters to life and, in this regard, I can strongly recommend the book to readers. However, in the broader sociological context, the book has little to offer that is unique. For example the author writes at length about the probable discrimination against Jews in traditional clubs. However this has been a staple of books on Palm Beach for the past fifty years or more and, in this regard, there is simply no new information presented by the author to differentiate this book. Towards the end of the book the author does interview two purported representatives of the traditional WASP establishment in Palm Beach. While not perfect, they don't seem to share any of the author's desire to ruminate on the distinctions between the rich and poor, they do come across as far more humane and accomplished than any of the would be "socialites" elsewhere in the book. Quite frankly, if I were them, I wouldn't want to associate with any of these hustlers either. In summary I have given the book a three on the basis of colorful characters, many of whom would fit easily into an Elmore Leonard or Donald Westlake novel, but feel that the lack of unique insight into the broader issues prevents me from giving a higher rating.

"Let me tell you about the very rich," begins the narrator of "The Rich Boy," F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story. "They are different from you and me." The truth of that observation, written more than 80 years ago, is brought home with the force of a hurricane in Laurence Leamer's engrossing, at times shocking, examination of Palm Beach society.

Leamer, who purchased a duplex a block north of Palm Beach's tony shopping street, Worth Avenue, in 1994, is something of a Nick Carrawayesque narrator. He shares the lives of his subjects, joining them for tennis games at the Breakers Club and attending some of the myriad social events around which life centers during the "season," when the population of the island triples. But Leamer, a former Newsweek editor who brings solid journalistic credentials to his task, never allows proximity to the world he's trying to capture dilute his objectivity. He's a consistently clear-eyed observer, with no illusions about the people he's describing and no awe of their wealth and power.

At least partially as promised in its subtitle, there's a surfeit of death in MADNESS --- a shooting, a suspected poisoning, a savage beating, a suicide and a death by fire --- all in the space of barely 10 years. The characters who swirl through the book encompass sociopaths like Fred Keller, whose bitter divorce battle (described in all its sordid detail) ends in a shattering act of violence, to the merely self-absorbed, a description that fits most of the rest of Leamer's subjects, including participants in the several May-December marriages that dot the book. Life in Palm Beach, Leamer writes, is like an "elaborate costume party in which one can wear whatever outfit one wants as long as the mask never falls." It's an endless round of charity events intended less to raise money for their ostensible causes than to ensure the participants are featured in the "Shiny Sheet," the local nickname for the Palm Beach Daily News, whose main function involves keeping score in the cutthroat competition that's the focus of the Palm Beach social ecosystem.

One story that illustrates the fierceness of that competition is that of David Berger and his companion and later wife, Barbara Wainscott. Berger was a distinguished Philadelphia trial lawyer, one of the pioneers of class action litigation, who amassed a $350 million fortune in the course of a storied career. In his 80s, however, he set about becoming the first Jew to crack the stratosphere of Palm Beach society. Leamer painstakingly reveals how Berger, with Wainscott as his guide, strategically dispensed charitable contributions and hosted parties (one of them featuring Prince Edward) seeking to gain entrance into those lofty precincts. If the story were of a man less accomplished than Berger, it would smack of farce; in the case of someone of his accomplishments, it is little short of tragedy, especially as he passes the last years of his life (he died in 2007 and is buried in the humble Pennsylvania town where he was born), alone in his vast mansion, while his sons, like vultures circling their prey, await his passing.

The world Berger lusted after was hit by a social earthquake in 1995, when Donald Trump, "herald of a gaudy gilded age of power and privilege that would sweep over the genteel old world of the island," turned Mar-a-Lago, the historic Marjorie Merriweather Post mansion, into a club open to anyone regardless of pedigree, willing to plunk down the $125,000 initiation fee. There's something pathetic about Leamer's account of Mar-a-Lago members, who time their visits to coincide with Trump's appearance and then hang around the club waiting to shake his hand while his butler whispers their names in his ear.

But perhaps one of the most profound developments in the recent history of Palm Beach occurred just as Leamer's book was published: the revelation of long-time resident Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. According to news reports, as many as one-third of the members of the Palm Beach Country Club --- the Jewish club to which only the seriously wealthy need apply, established as an answer to the bastions of WASP society like the Everglades Club and the Bath & Tennis Club --- were prominent Madoff marks.

MADNESS UNDER THE ROYAL PALMS is something of a guilty pleasure, but it's a substantial pleasure all the same. Solidly researched and capably written, it's the perfect book with which to while away an afternoon on the beach, preferably one distant from the land of vacuous social climbing Laurence Leamer exposes.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg

This book starts out interesting; sort of, but after a few chapters it is nothing more than high society gossip. It gets real boring, the same people the same parties only a different night and maybe a different place. If this lifestyle seems interesting then you might like this book but I had to abandon it after reading about half

There is an old saying that those who marry for money end up earning every penny of it. The truth of that saying is on full display in this account of the sordid, sorry lives of the social poseurs that are featured in Madness Under The Royal Palms. From the society matron who engineers a wealthy lawyer's rise through the social ranks, marries him, and then is forced out of her marriage and his life by her aging husband's sons when he develops dementia; to the German mail-order bride who pays for her choice of a wealthy, ruthless husband with her life; to the various and sundry hangers-on, wanna-bes, and has-beens who populate the margins of Palm Beach society, this book is larded with accounts of the harm that wealth can bring to the lives of those who seek it.

Behind the gated mansions lurk gold-digging husbands and wives, ruthless heirs eager to get their hands on their inheritance, feckless children who lack direction and morality, and a plethora of "charity balls" that seem serve very little actual charitable purpose. Palm Beach society revolves around a few country clubs, endless parties and galas, golf and tennis, and designer gowns. And anti-semitism...lots and lots of anti-semitism.

So when the author trots these worthies out for our inspection and lays bare all their shabby little secrets, failings, and disappointments, I suspect that most readers will experience no small amount of schadenfreude. After all, there are few things in life quite as satisfying as seeing the high and mighty brought low. And, that, I suspect is one of the primary, unspoken, functions of a book like this: to make the majority of us finish the last page with a sigh of relief that, although we don't lead these lives of wealth and indulgence, at least we aren't like the sorry wretches we have just glimpsed, in all their finery, strutting upon the grand stage of life, toilet paper firmly affixed to the bottoms of their shoes.

Make no mistake about it: this book is 313 pages of cruel gossip, with footnotes. I suspect that the paperback edition, when it comes out, will have plenty of added details concerning the Madoff scandal. I hope that the publisher will see fit to assign a line editor to go over it a bit more carefully to correct the too prominent errors in writing and the awkward phrasing that crops up too frequently.

I bought this book primarily because I'd read Leamer's book on the Kennedys and recalled that it was well written as well as engaging.

Leamer's newest book doesn't disappoint as far as content. But this time around, I found it hard to enjoy reading because I was so distracted by the badly formed sentences, consistently WRONG punctuation, grammatical clunkers, and poorly focused narrative. At times, I found it impossible to figure out what Leamer was saying because the details and/or chronologies were so disjointed as to be impenetrable. I often found myself feeling as if I'd just been dropped from a helicopter into the middle of a complex family scenario with absolutely no background info.

It's possible that Leamer had a really bad copyeditor who changed a perfectly good manuscript into an incomprehensible nightmare. But if that's not the case and this is Leamer's level of writing ability, then he got stuck with another kind of bad copyeditor -- a sloppy one who is either ignorant or lazy.

In any case, the book could -- and should -- have been so much better.

All of that said, there is much here to consume an avid reader's attention, and I would recommend the book especially for its authenticity and reliability. Leamer has lived for many years in the community he's writing about, so his stories ring true. (Of course, much as Truman Capote became a complete social outcast after "Answered Prayers," Leamer will certainly be the scourge of Palm Beach after this book. Luckily for him, he doesn't take the place or the people very seriously.)

Essentially, this is a book that Dominick Dunne might have written, but his version would have been really, wickedly good.

Palm Beach is such a strange carousel of eccentrics and wannabe's. A friend of mine lives in West Palm and we often venture over into Palm Beach for dinner. How bizarre!! When I first arrived I was so naive that I thought a 90-year-old man with 3 / 20 year olds was having dinner with his granddaughters. I though perhaps his wife was using the rest room, until two of these girls started kissing one another while another man took photos. This was in a pretty upscale establishment for New Years. The quest for wealth and power is highly disturbing.

If you're looking for the PERFECT vacation read, this is the stuff. I should say that my reading tastes run almost exclusively to the classics of the 18th & 19th century when it comes to fiction, and to current events/politics/non-fiction when it comes to contemporary works. Somehow I picked this up and started reading it in the store - and could not put it down.

It is very well written and the writer comes off as a most likable fellow. The "characters" in the book, however, do not come off as likable. In fact, I kept asking myself "why am I reading this book about these HORRIBLE people? It's a real tribute to the author's gifts that I not only finished it but could not put it down until I had.

You have to hand it to Laurence Learner. He describes the most tedious social scene imaginable--filled with old gold diggers, gigalos and every possible kind of social climber--and still ends up with a very good story. The people he describes are obsessed with the community of Palm Beach, a small, insular and relatively unsophisticated community. The money in Palm Beach is everywhere but the way Learner tells us, the people have very little idea of what to do with it. Being "exclusive" is more important than being anything else. Most of the social scene revolves around going to parties and charity events, in a (mostly) vain attempt to impress each other. Oh yes, and then there is the scheming to get more money. Can't forget that. In fact all that scheming and jockeying for attention is usually pathetic, or funny though a few stories are horrifying. Seriously. What could be stranger than a bunch of women, ages 50-80 jockeying for a picture in the local newspaper, "The Shinny Sheet," like its Vogue?

If "the rich are different" as Fitgerald thought, he must not have been talking about these people, most of whom don't seem to have read a book, or talked about much outside themselves, since the Ford Administration