WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT PEACHES & DADDY…

“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Michael Greenburg's Peaches and Daddy is a wildly entertaining and wonderfully enlightening adventure in social history. The tale it tells is as old as the human species and as fresh as the latest scandals rocketing across the Internet. This is a book for students of the media, history buffs and anyone who loves a rollicking good story expertly told. There's not a dull moment in it. Read it and laugh. Read it and enjoy. Read it and learn. But whatever you do, be sure to get your hands on Peaches and Daddy!” Peter Quinn, author of Hour of the Cat, Banished Children of Eve, and Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America

“With PEACHES & DADDY, Michael M, Greenburg brings the Roaring Twenties to life in this lively tale of an aging Manhattan mogul, his 15-year-old, none too innocent paramour and their sensational marriage… This is the stuff which gave rise to tabloid journalism.” Laton McCartney, author of THE TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country.

"Greenburg artfully transports us to a fascinating time when the world went mad and lets us spy on a naughty society surprisingly like our own." Deborah Davis, author of Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X and Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote's Black and White Ball

"Lively, intelligently rendered account of a largely forgotten 1920s tabloid scandal. In gilded, pre-Depression New York City, real-estate tycoon and man about town Edward "Daddy" Browning courted and married "Peaches" Heenan, a 15-year-old aspiring flapper less than one-third his age. Debut author Greenburg zestfully recounts the sordid story of conspicuous consumption, outlandish antics for the benefit of a voracious press corps and—hardly ten months after the marriage—a divorce trial that challenged prevailing standards of decency. Neither wife nor husband emerges unscathed in his telling, and certainly not the yellow journalists who lapped up the scandal and dished it out to a titillated public in real time. Most of the book revolves around Daddy, a man whose eye for real estate helped shape the New York City skyline. His desperate need for publicity, however, bordered on the pathological, and his interest in young women cast even his charitable acts under a cloud of suspicion. Newly concerned with the social well-being of children, authorities attempted to thwart his 1926 marriage to Peaches and to take away the daughter adopted during a previous marriage. Peaches was no innocent victim. She gained Daddy's sympathy with self-inflicted scars and walked off with his money the moment she was able. Greenburg's blow-by-blow narrative, set against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties' changing sexual mores, makes for riveting reading, especially since the author enriches it by ably recounting the parallel story of the rise of tabloid journalism. In a world continually shocked—and feigning disgust—by the doings of Britney and Paris, Peaches & Daddy provides a strange but certain comfort." Kirkus Reviews

“Greenburg, an attorney and former editor of the Pepperdine Law Review, recalls a forgotten scandal in an exciting era. In 1926, Edward “Daddy” Browning, a 51-year-old New York City millionaire, fell for a 15-year-old “de facto high school dropout” named Frances Heenan, known as “Peaches.” They were married a month later, and within a year they were battling in the courtroom. Both Heenan, a “buxom girl” who had worked in various Manhattan department stores, and her millionaire “Daddy” were publicity hounds, and the newly popular tabloids were thrilled to bait readers with the lurid escapades of the “elderly vulgarian and his bride.” Months after Heenan (who was said to have spent $1,000 dollars a day shopping) left Browning, a sensational separation trial ensued, concluding in March 1927 in Browning’s favor, at least financially. Peaches turned to a career in vaudeville, but the media frenzy continued until Browning’s death in 1934. Greenburg offers an entertaining history of a scandal, coupled with a serious look at the infancy of tabloid journalism.” Publishers Weekly