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.