index index index index Kessler didn't have a friggin' clue what he was talking about -- and I'm IN the book! There's errors a-plenty: A real Palm Beacher wouldn't be caught dead at Ta-Boo; almost everybody in the book except for Donald Trump (and me) lives in West Palm Beach, NOT Palm Beach; the "anti-Semitic" club of which Kessler writes was, in fact, founded by Jules Bache, a Jew; and the earlier reviewer is right in that an honest-to-god Palm Beacher would never, ever talk to an author. His suck-up to Donald Trump (of whom I happen to be quite fond, in spite of what somebody called his "terminal vulgarity" ) got him a free ride on the Trump jet and a membership at the Mar-a-Lago Club, where Kessler and his DAR wife are nonentities. This is a town filled with long-marrried and happy couples; generous but anonymous philanthropists; and billionaires to whom publicity is anathema. In short, the kind of place that doesn't sell books. Save your money. Basically a series of anecdotes. Like reading someone's diary.
The interesting anecdotes were that Marjorie Merriweather Post liked her gold bath room fixtures because gold is much easier to clean, that one of Bobby Kennedy's kids OD'd in room 107 of the Brazilian Court Hotel, and that the Kennedy estate was falling in and had no A/C when the family sold it. Of course, Donald Trump weighs in with his genius for self promotion. I guess one could have used it for a guide to the hot bars and restaurants in the late 90's when the book was written.
But the book is sadly lacking in insights and history of how Palm Beach became such a center for superficiality and messed up values. About the only insigths he offers is that super rich are often unhappy, and their children could care less when they die.
Don't bother!I hate myself for having read this book right to the end. It was like reading aspecial double issue of Vanity Fair, packed full of scabrous gossip about a bunch of people I never heard of efore and never will again. The so-called "celebrities" who flicker through the pages of the book were just flying in, they don't live in Palm Beach, and who's left? Well, Donald Trump and a few others, all of them deadly dull.

Every page has some kind of cautionary tale about the straight men who rule the roost in Palm Beach and buy their love with money. This one "can't keep it in his pants." That one " has to get his affairs into order." It would be interesting if the reader cared about any of the people, or again, knew who they were. The author, Kessler, who wrote a fairy tale book about George Bush Jr's Presidential character, is obviously in great anxiety about his own social status, and he must feel that rubbing against these rich, spoiled people on vanity fair's bank account, is going to make him somehow less Jewish.

As many readers have commented, the book is filled with photos of Kessler and his wife ("Pam") meeting rich people, trying to look happy and relaxed. But their flop sweat is written all over them. Whoever the photo editor was for THE SEASON should have discreetly taken the Kesslers aside and told them how tacky their photos are, save them for the panelled den in their suburban home, or their cabin cruiser.

Kessler tries to imitate the highly worked novelistic shape of MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL by focussing on the dreary story of a male "walker," a single presentable man who is available to escort society women to parties--this character is called Kirby and he indulges in a passion for a so-called straight man named Bill, a loser ex-con who's always up to some drug-inspired mischief. Kirby would be pathetic, but at least he shows some emotion. Unlike the other people Kessler tries to impress us with.

As one woman says in THE SEASON, "There are a lot of floozies and fruits and nuts. There are also a lot of beautiful men and women here.. But the ones who are straight are taken. I live in a crazy town. People try to contaminate me with their bizarreness." Well, hey, I live in a crazy town too, but I never felt contaminated until I read this impossible, heartbreaking book about trying to mingle with your betters.I initially picked up this book because I thought that life in Palm Beach would make for an interesting story. I was wrong. Dead wrong. Instead I find tales of deceit and lies interwoven to form a web of snobbery, elitism, and low self-esteem. Yes, low self-esteem. For if one really reads betwen the lines and asses the information in Kessler's book, one will find that the people are lacking inmany ways that money cannot fix. Overll the book was interesting. However, I feel that Kessler indeed got bogged down with too much namedropping and with too many vague and uninteresting characters. The story could have flowed a bit better and perhaps would have been more interesting had he gone more indepth about the bigotry that currently inhabits Palm Beach. Still, this was not Kessler's best work.The book was an easy read in that respect it was well written. It flowed well. However, I could not help but to think repeated throughout the book how the author harks on anti-semitism in Palm Beach by the upper class. For example, there is more than enough chapters about how the country clubs exclude Jews, over and over. I am not anti semitic, nor do I support anti semitic views and practices but I think the author mentions this way too much in his book. There is prejudice everywhere but what is so appealing in being a member of "members only" establishment is that it does exclude most.

There are more pics of author with the so-called "rich and famous" than the rich and famous themselves!

The book, I feel does give some insight into the lives of the inabitants of Palm Beach but not really into the lives of the original inhabitants, the "old guard". The people he interviews all seem to be poseurs trying to fit in and be a part of the "old guard" and even if theydo float on the "fringes" of "society" they don't really seem to be an insider or a real member. His sources are restaurant managers, real estate brokers, waitresses at hotel bars - how many of the old money-ed Palm Beachers would have these types of occupation? I just question how accurately these sources know the real workings of the truly wealthy, old money-ed Palm Beachers since they are not one themselves.

All in all, pleasant read but take the information with a grainof salt.

Palm Beach is known around the world as the most wealthy, glamorous, opulent, decadent, self-indulgent, sinful spot on earth. With their beautiful 3.75 square-island constantly in the media glare, Palm Beachers protect their impossibly rich society from outside scrutiny with vigilant police, ubiquitous personal security staffs, and screens of tall hedges encircling every mansion.

To this bizarre suspicious, exclusive world, New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler brought his charm, insight, and award-winning investigative skills, and came to know Palm Beach, its celebrated and powerful residents, and its exotic social rituals as no outside writer ever has. In this colorful, entertaining, and compulsively readable book. Kessler reveals the inside story of Palm Beach society as it moves languidly through the summer months, quickens in the fall, and shifts into frenetic high speed as the season begins in December, peaks in January and February, and continues into April.

When unimaginable wealth combines with unlimited leisure time oil an island barely three times the size of New York's Central Park, human foibles and desires, lust and greed, passion and avarice, become magnified and intensified. Like laboratory rats fed growth hormones, the 9,800 Palm Beach residents--87 percent of whom are millionaires--exhibit the most outlandish extremes of their breed.

To tell the story, Kessler follows four Palm Beachers through the season. These four characters--the reigning queen of Palm Beach society, the night manager of Palm Beach's trendiest bar, a gay "walker" who escorts wealthy women to balls, and a thirty--six-year-old gorgeous blonde who says she "can't find a guy in Palm Beach"--know practically everyone on the island and tell what goes on behind the scenes.

Interweaving the yarns of these unfor-gettable figures with the lifestyle, history, scandals, lore, and rituals of a unique island of excess, The Season creates a powerful, seamless, juicy narrative that no novelist could dream up.In books such as The FBI and Inside Congress, Ronald Kessler turned his journalist's eye, its focus honed during years at The Washington Post, to uncovering the scandals behind America's biggest institutions; his research even led to the deposition of a director of the FBI. So, what secrets has he uncovered that will change the lives of Palm Beach denizens? Not many, as it turns out. Mistresses, breast implants, and other high-living extravagances of the Palm Beach rich aren't secrets after all. Nor does Kessler have the literary gifts of John Berendt, who deftly explored small-town society intrigue in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The characters that populate The Season are straight out of Dynasty: "shapely" and "alluring," "raven-haired," or "spectacular blonds with impossibly tight behinds." If there's anything truly shocking about this book, it's witnessing Kessler's remarkable research skills put to such trivial use. As a frothy page-turner The Season earns its price, but as a cultural study it's as insubstantial as the lives it chronicles. --Maria Dolan suria review reviews analysis analyze