Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty
*Starred Review* Oppenheimer’s eleventh biography chronicles five generations of the Johnson dynasty, from the three brothers who founded the world’s largest health-care business in 1888 through the subsequent members of the Lucky Sperm Club, heirs and heiresses who benefited financially from the family name while having little or nothing to do with running the company. Known as “The General,” founding brother Robert Wood Johnson Jr. ruled the roost with an iron fist until his death in 1968, and his great-grandson and namesake Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV is the billionaire owner of the New York Jets. Woody’s daughter, “Casey” Johnson, was a tabloid “celebutante” and friend of Paris Hilton who came to a tragic end in 2009 at the age of 31, and his once-troubled uncle is the famed sculptor, J. Seward Johnson Jr. Oppenheimer follows the clan of dysfunctional Band-Aid and baby-powder millionaires through the adulterous affairs, ugly divorces, drug and alcohol addictions, tragic accidents, suicide attempts, paternity disputes, will contests, and other turmoil as the family reaps the rewards of inheritance through privilege, opulence, and excess, for better and for worse. --David Siegfried