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

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

From the acclaimed bestselling author of Philistines at the Hedgerow comes a remarkably revealing profile of the Miami Beach no one knowsâ€“a tale of fabulous excess, thwarted power, and rekindled lives that will take its place among the decadeâ€™s best works of social portraiture.

Created from a mix of swampland and dredged-up barrier reef, Miami Beach has always been one part drifter-mecca and one part fantasyland, simultaneously a catch basin for con men, fast-talk artists, and shameless self-promoters, and a Shangri-La for sun worshippers and hardcore hedonists. In Miami Beach itâ€™s often said that "if youâ€™re not indicted youâ€™re not invited." But the cityâ€™s mad, fascinating complexity resists easy stereotyping.

Foolâ€™s Paradise is more than just a present-day profile of a dark Eden. Gaines journeys back into the cityâ€™s social and cultural history, unearthing stories of the resortâ€™s past that are every bit as absorbingâ€“and jaw-droppingâ€“as those of its present. The book begins with a snapshot of the cityâ€™s current excess (this is, after all, a sun-washed hamlet that boasts, on a per capita basis, more barsâ€“and breast implantsâ€“than any other place in America), then plunges into the Beachâ€™s origins, chronicling the audacious rise of such hoteliers as the Fontainebleauâ€™s Ben Novack and the Eden Rocâ€™s Harry Mufson, the sharp-elbowed tactics of Al Capone and Frank Sinatra, and the Mac-10 shooting sprees of the Marielito and Colombian drug lords.

From there, the narrative shifts to two wildly eccentric souls who gave their lives to preserving the cityâ€™s architectural dazzle and creating its color palette, introduces us to "the Most Powerful Man in Miami Beach," and arrives finally in the modern day, where we meet, among others, a kinky German playboy who once owned a quarter of South Beach and publicly flaunts his sexual escapades; a fabulously successful nightclub promoter whose addictive past seems to have given him a portal into the night worldâ€™s id; and a gaggle of young sexy models, dreamers, and schemers on a mission to achieve significance.

Evoking the Beachâ€™s surreal blend of flashy Vegas and old Hollywood glamour, as well as its manic desperation and reckless wealth, Gaines persuasively demonstrates that though the Beach isâ€“in the words of its most famous drag queenâ€“"an island of broken toys . . . a place where people get away with things theyâ€™d never get away with anyplace else," it casts an irresistible spell.
Country USA
Brand CROWN
Manufacturer Crown
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 5432
Color Sky/Pale blue
ReleaseDate 2009-12-29
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780307346285

Country	USA
Brand	CROWN
Manufacturer	Crown
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	5432
Color	Sky/Pale blue
ReleaseDate	2009-12-29
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780307346285

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

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