The Joy Boy’s Daughter

About the Book

From the time she was a little girl, Edie Lynch has been listening to family stories,starting with her beloved grandmother Josie, where they sat together on an old swing couch on Josie’s front porch and Edie learned that Josie was the daughter of a white doctor and her beautiful and ambitious slave mother, Missy.

The doctor came to the plantation one day where Josie and her mother were laboring in the cotton fields of Alabama and he leaned down from his big black horse and handed Josie a pair of little red shoes, declaring that the shoes were from her Pa. The doctor and Missy’s child, Josie, met for the first time that fateful day and they never saw each other again.

Edie was troubled and fascinated with Josie’s story and began documenting it as well as the story of her own father, known as the Joy Boy. The Joy Boy was a well-known club owner whose neon lit night spot drew the likes of Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Nat King Cole, and Count Basie. Edie went on to marry a charismatic man, like her own father, and to put her husband through medical school, she became Pennsylvania’s first black model, doing fashion shoots and television commercials before earning two Master Degrees in International Affairs and Media Studies at The New School.

Edie shares riveting life lessons she learned when her husband deserted the family, her son became ill, and the painful search for her missing, lost grandson. Both Edie’s son and daughter would make a mark for themselves in the Arts, the son as a world class composer, and the daughter as a Marketing Director for top music stars.

Edie ‘s memoir traces the colorful life she has lived as a film director, model, jeweler, and photographer, and the life she values the most, teaching homeless and poor children living in tough inner city neighborhoods the solace that comes from practicing the Creative Arts. Edie’s memoir spans six generations and shows her gifts as a natural storyteller.

About the Author

Edie Lynch has two master’s degrees from The New School and has founded non-profits that benefit at-risk children in Harlem and street children in Brazil. She creates jewelry sculptures, has published a book of photographs, and has produced documentary films. She envisions a world where all people live in harmony and work towards peace.