Saturday, January 31, 2009

TAKING AIM AT THE PRESIDENT : THE REMARKABLE STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO SHOT AT GERALD FORD
by Geri Spieler

The only woman to ever shoot a gun at a U.S. president, Sarah Jane Moore was not pictured to be an assassin. She was middle-aged, had a young son and was gracious and charming, but on her own terms. In actuality, Sarah Jane was a woman of many contradictions.
Moore grew up in a small, rural town in West Virginia with extremely strict parents. They had high expectations and were not warm and loving. While in high school, she got involved with the theater, which offered her an escape and with this background, eventually, she was able to mislead people by shifting identities.
She was married five times, abandoned her children (they ended up living with her parents), spied for the FBI and infiltrated radical underground movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
Geri Spieler has written a fascinating tale of an unknown woman, who almost killed a president. For twenty-seven years, the author met with Moore and corresponded with her, plus did her own research.
A good read.
Recommended.

Monday, January 26, 2009

PEACHES & DADDY : A STORY OF THE ROARING TWENTIES, THE BIRTH OF TABLOID MEDIA, AND THE COURTSHIP THAT CAPTURED THE HEART AND IMAGINATION OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
by Michael M. Greenburg

The Roaring Twenties was a decade of the Charleston, Prohibition, jazz, the Model T, flappers, women's suffrage, and dance marathons. Nice girls smoked cigarettes and hemlines rose. Victorian views were always being challenged. Against this backdrop was the sensational story of Peaches and Daddy.
Edward Browning was a fifty-one-year-old Manhattan millionaire, who fell in love, in 1926, with Frances Heenan, a fifteen-year-old high school student, who worked as a clerk and was never in school. They met at a sorority dance. It was a whirlwind courtship and thirty-seven days later, they were married. Within ten months, they would be in court filing for divorce.
Peaches & Daddy is a rollicking, good tale of a dysfunctional couple, who both loved being in the limelight and entertaining the masses with their eccentricities. The newspapers gobbled it up and tabloid journalism was born.
Michael Greenburg is a terrific writer and captures the "era of wonderful nonsense" effortlessly.
Black and white photographs are interspersed throughout the chapters, plus composographs from the tabloids. There's some great tidbits of fascinating trivia, also. Ed Sullivan is mentioned and how he got his start in the entertainment industry is unbelievable.
A totally enjoyable book.
Highly recommended.