Herb ’n’ Lorna (pocket-size paperback)
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Paperback, 412 pages
$13.95
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Peter Leroy investigates and reconstructs the life stories of his maternal grandparents, Herb and Lorna Piper.
On the surface, Herb and Lorna seem to be a typically sunny 1950s American couple. Herb sells Studebakers to the citizens of Babbington, a Long Island seaside town, and Lorna is his cheerfully coy and clever wife. Their story seems like an American myth: small-town origins, Jazz Age romance, Depression trials, postwar prosperity.
However, this book begins with Peter Leroy’s discovery, after Herb and Lorna have died, “that my maternal grandparents were involved in—virtually the creators of—the animated erotic jewelry industry.” From that moment, the story takes on a tone of mingled awe and delight, propelled by a pair of secrets that dovetail, at the end, into a luscious and bawdy revelation.