The Honeymoon Corruption

by Richard Lee Zuras

It’s the early 1960s, and while the Doo-wop era is ending, racial and class prejudice is alive and thriving in the American South. In this unforgiving environment, star-crossed young lovers Althea and Guy are determined to wed—despite the objections of Althea’s disapproving and powerful father.

Undeterred, the couple elopes to the seaside resort town of Wildwood, New Jersey, with two suitcases, a veil, and no plans. Fast running out of cash, they fall in with a local duo: the free-spirited Jeannie and the fast-talking Max Castaldi, who may be able to provide just the break the young couple needs. But as Max introduces Guy to a shadier world that seethes under the boardwalk lights, both Guy and Althea—so full of optimism at first—soon learn that getting on their feet in this town may demand more than they are prepared to give.

Set against a backdrop of the glitzy, glamorous resorts of the Mid-Atlantic coast in its heyday, The Honeymoon Corruption marries hope with fear, desperation with promise, and triumph with tragedy, revealing the seedy underbelly of the East in the Kennedy era—and the true cost of a fairy-tale ending that might not be such a fairy tale after all.