It’s the early 1890s. By chance, Billy Brannigan, age 17, meets young Daniel Baronovich, a runaway not yet 15, in front of Della Lacy’s brothel in St. Louis. Brash and handsome, Billy is a seasoned performer with Doc Noble’s medicine show helping to peddle Doc’s cure-all Elixir of the Incas. Daniel’s ability to play piano gets him an invitation to join Billy and Doc.
And so begins this story that follows the two youths on their haphazard journey from the medicine show to the Primrose and West travelling minstrel troupe and then on to old New York’s gas-lit music halls and vaudeville theaters where they perform as Baron and Brannigan, Song and Dance.
It’s a bumpy journey, though, with missteps and mayhem dogging their path. Along the way, the team mixes with talented acts, willing showgirls, zany song writers, and famous personalities of the gaslight era including John L. Sullivan, Victor Herbert and Tony Pastor.
Both young men find love; Billy meets Lily Langford, his own age and already a veteran vaudevillian, and Daniel dreams of Claire, Doc Noble’s daughter. Unfortunately, life, like love, seldom follows the road chosen. Before they can claim stardom, calamity strikes and threatens to end their career and friendship.
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The Rover
Readers of Edward Farber’s novel, Baron & Brannigan, Book 1, meet Charles “Doc” Noble as the aging proprietor of a traveling medicine show peddling the cure-all medicine, “Elixir of the Incas.” They know him also as an inveterate vagabond always on the road to somewhere. But how did he get to that point in life?
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Getting the Word(s) Out
Ed has been getting the words out for a long time starting with stories in a college literary magazine. He calls himself an eclectic writer whose early short stories covered a multitude of situations and characters. His new novel, soon to be released, is set in the music and entertainment world of the 1890’s and reflects his love for both music and history.
About Ed Farber