Author: Michael Zapata
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488055734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
*Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction* A Heartland Booksellers Award Nominee An NPR Best Book of the Year A BookPage Best Book of the Year A Library Journal Best Winter/Spring Debut of 2020 A Most Anticipated Book of 2020 from the Boston Globe and The Millions A Best Book of February 2020 at Salon, The Millions, LitHub and Vol 1. Brooklyn “A stunner—equal parts epic and intimate, thrilling and elegiac.”—Laura Van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers. What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds.
The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
Author: Michael Zapata
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488055734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
*Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction* A Heartland Booksellers Award Nominee An NPR Best Book of the Year A BookPage Best Book of the Year A Library Journal Best Winter/Spring Debut of 2020 A Most Anticipated Book of 2020 from the Boston Globe and The Millions A Best Book of February 2020 at Salon, The Millions, LitHub and Vol 1. Brooklyn “A stunner—equal parts epic and intimate, thrilling and elegiac.”—Laura Van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers. What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds.
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488055734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
*Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction* A Heartland Booksellers Award Nominee An NPR Best Book of the Year A BookPage Best Book of the Year A Library Journal Best Winter/Spring Debut of 2020 A Most Anticipated Book of 2020 from the Boston Globe and The Millions A Best Book of February 2020 at Salon, The Millions, LitHub and Vol 1. Brooklyn “A stunner—equal parts epic and intimate, thrilling and elegiac.”—Laura Van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers. What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds.
Nobody's Angel
Author: Thomas McGuane
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030782201X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
A novel about a former soldier in Big Sky Country whose life is spiraling out of control, from the acclaimed author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts, who is "among the most arresting and fascinating [writers] of his generation" (San Francisco Chronicle). In McGuane's first novel set in his famed American West, Patrick Fitzpatrick is a former soldier, a fourth-generation cowboy, and a whiskey addict. His grandfather wants to run away to act in movies, his sister wants to burn the house down, and his new stallion is bent on killing him: all of them urgently require attention. But increasingly Patrick himself is spiraling out of control, into that region of romantic misadventure and vanishing possibilities that is Thomas McGuane's Montana. Nowhere has McGuane mapped that territory more precisely—or with such tenderhearted lunacy—than in Nobody's Angel, a novel that places him in a genre of his own.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030782201X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
A novel about a former soldier in Big Sky Country whose life is spiraling out of control, from the acclaimed author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts, who is "among the most arresting and fascinating [writers] of his generation" (San Francisco Chronicle). In McGuane's first novel set in his famed American West, Patrick Fitzpatrick is a former soldier, a fourth-generation cowboy, and a whiskey addict. His grandfather wants to run away to act in movies, his sister wants to burn the house down, and his new stallion is bent on killing him: all of them urgently require attention. But increasingly Patrick himself is spiraling out of control, into that region of romantic misadventure and vanishing possibilities that is Thomas McGuane's Montana. Nowhere has McGuane mapped that territory more precisely—or with such tenderhearted lunacy—than in Nobody's Angel, a novel that places him in a genre of his own.
The Everlasting
Author: Katy Simpson Smith
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062873687
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BEST HISTORICAL FICTION OF 2020 "Only Katy Simpson Smith could have written a novel of such elegance, emotional power, and grace. The Everlasting, a quadruple love story spanning two millennia, is no less than the story of love itself—its frustrations and thrills, its blunders and transcendent glories. Meraviglioso."—Nathaniel Rich, author of King Zeno From a supremely talented author comes this brilliant and inventive literary work of historical fiction, set in Rome in four different centuries, that explores love in all its various incarnations and ponders elemental questions of good and evil, obedience and free will that connect four unforgettable lives . Spanning two thousand years, The Everlasting follows four characters whose struggles resonate across the centuries: an early Christian child martyr; a medieval monk on crypt duty in a church; a Medici princess of Moorish descent; and a contemporary field biologist conducting an illicit affair. Outsiders to a city layered and dense with history, this quartet separated by time grapple with the physicality of bodies, the necessity for sacrifice, and the power of love to sustain and challenge faith. Their small rebellions are witnessed and provoked by an omniscient, time-traveling Satan who, though incorporeal, nonetheless suffers from a heart in search of repair. As their dramas unfold amid the brick, marble, and ghosts of Rome, they each must decide what it means to be good. Twelve-year old Prisca defiles the scrolls of her father’s library. Felix, a holy man, watches his friend’s body decay and is reminded of the first boy he loved passionately. Giulia de’ Medici, a beauty with dark skin and limitless wealth, wants to deliver herself from her unborn child. Tom, an American biologist studying the lives of the smallest creatures, cannot pinpoint when his own marriage began to die. As each of these conflicted people struggles with forces they cannot control, their circumstances raise a profound and timeless question at the heart of faith: What is our duty to each other, and what will God forgive? Moving back through time from today (The Wilderness) to the Renaissance (The City) to the Middle Ages (The Grave) and finally to Rome under Marcus Aurelius (The Paradise), Tom, Guilia, Felix, and Prisca search and suffer for love in the eternal city, made vivid and familiar as they reappear in each century.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062873687
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BEST HISTORICAL FICTION OF 2020 "Only Katy Simpson Smith could have written a novel of such elegance, emotional power, and grace. The Everlasting, a quadruple love story spanning two millennia, is no less than the story of love itself—its frustrations and thrills, its blunders and transcendent glories. Meraviglioso."—Nathaniel Rich, author of King Zeno From a supremely talented author comes this brilliant and inventive literary work of historical fiction, set in Rome in four different centuries, that explores love in all its various incarnations and ponders elemental questions of good and evil, obedience and free will that connect four unforgettable lives . Spanning two thousand years, The Everlasting follows four characters whose struggles resonate across the centuries: an early Christian child martyr; a medieval monk on crypt duty in a church; a Medici princess of Moorish descent; and a contemporary field biologist conducting an illicit affair. Outsiders to a city layered and dense with history, this quartet separated by time grapple with the physicality of bodies, the necessity for sacrifice, and the power of love to sustain and challenge faith. Their small rebellions are witnessed and provoked by an omniscient, time-traveling Satan who, though incorporeal, nonetheless suffers from a heart in search of repair. As their dramas unfold amid the brick, marble, and ghosts of Rome, they each must decide what it means to be good. Twelve-year old Prisca defiles the scrolls of her father’s library. Felix, a holy man, watches his friend’s body decay and is reminded of the first boy he loved passionately. Giulia de’ Medici, a beauty with dark skin and limitless wealth, wants to deliver herself from her unborn child. Tom, an American biologist studying the lives of the smallest creatures, cannot pinpoint when his own marriage began to die. As each of these conflicted people struggles with forces they cannot control, their circumstances raise a profound and timeless question at the heart of faith: What is our duty to each other, and what will God forgive? Moving back through time from today (The Wilderness) to the Renaissance (The City) to the Middle Ages (The Grave) and finally to Rome under Marcus Aurelius (The Paradise), Tom, Guilia, Felix, and Prisca search and suffer for love in the eternal city, made vivid and familiar as they reappear in each century.
Boys of Alabama: A Novel
Author: Genevieve Hudson
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631496301
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
A “soul-stirring debut,” Boys of Alabama tells the “bewitching” (Michelle Hart, O, The Oprah Magazine) tale of sixteen-year-old Max’s first year in America. “Daring, unusual . . . and startlingly fresh” (Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio), Boys of Alabama announced Genevieve Hudson’s place in the canon of the southern gothic alongside Donna Tartt and Harper Lee. Newly arrived in Alabama, Max falls in love, questions his faith, and navigates a strange power. Although his German parents don’t know what to make of a South pining for the past, shy Max thrives after being taken in by the football team. But when he meets fishnet-wearing Pan in physics class, they embark on a quixotic, consuming relationship. Writing in “prose that is always imaginative and sensual” (Sarah Neilson, Believer), Hudson offers a complex portrait of masculinity, religion, immigration, and the adolescent pressures that require total conformity.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631496301
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
A “soul-stirring debut,” Boys of Alabama tells the “bewitching” (Michelle Hart, O, The Oprah Magazine) tale of sixteen-year-old Max’s first year in America. “Daring, unusual . . . and startlingly fresh” (Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio), Boys of Alabama announced Genevieve Hudson’s place in the canon of the southern gothic alongside Donna Tartt and Harper Lee. Newly arrived in Alabama, Max falls in love, questions his faith, and navigates a strange power. Although his German parents don’t know what to make of a South pining for the past, shy Max thrives after being taken in by the football team. But when he meets fishnet-wearing Pan in physics class, they embark on a quixotic, consuming relationship. Writing in “prose that is always imaginative and sensual” (Sarah Neilson, Believer), Hudson offers a complex portrait of masculinity, religion, immigration, and the adolescent pressures that require total conformity.
Black River
Author: S. M. Hulse
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544309294
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
This novel of sorrow and suspense, set in rural Montana, is “a complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list” (The Seattle Times). Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a correction officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the uprising shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage,” S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil (Los Angeles Review of Books).
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544309294
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
This novel of sorrow and suspense, set in rural Montana, is “a complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list” (The Seattle Times). Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a correction officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the uprising shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage,” S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil (Los Angeles Review of Books).
Black Forest
Author: Valérie Mréjen
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1646050215
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
A man decides he is old enough. A woman returns early from a lovers' retreat to a bottle of pills at home. And how should you explain the nuances of contemporary Paris to your mother, twenty – five years dead? Valérie Mr éjen 's Black Forest is a book of mourning that isn ' t morbid or sentimental, but rather an elegant and wryly humorous brace against the void. With a paradoxically detached intimacy, Mr éjen follows death's dark and twisted path through the lives it touches, wringing out every possible meaning—or non–meaning— along the way. A writer at the height of her career who draws comparisons to Georges Perec and Nathalie Sarraute, Mr éjen has cemented her status as an auteur with a singular voice, guiding us through the Black Forest of ghosts that populate her subconscious.
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1646050215
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
A man decides he is old enough. A woman returns early from a lovers' retreat to a bottle of pills at home. And how should you explain the nuances of contemporary Paris to your mother, twenty – five years dead? Valérie Mr éjen 's Black Forest is a book of mourning that isn ' t morbid or sentimental, but rather an elegant and wryly humorous brace against the void. With a paradoxically detached intimacy, Mr éjen follows death's dark and twisted path through the lives it touches, wringing out every possible meaning—or non–meaning— along the way. A writer at the height of her career who draws comparisons to Georges Perec and Nathalie Sarraute, Mr éjen has cemented her status as an auteur with a singular voice, guiding us through the Black Forest of ghosts that populate her subconscious.
Looking for Miss America
Author: Margot Mifflin
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1640092242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
From an author praised for writing “delicious social history” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times) comes a lively account of memorable Miss America contestants, protests, and scandals—and how the pageant, nearing its one hundredth anniversary, serves as an unintended indicator of feminist progress Looking for Miss America is a fast–paced narrative history of a curious and contradictory institution. From its start in 1921 as an Atlantic City tourist draw to its current incarnation as a scholarship competition, the pageant has indexed women’s status during periods of social change—the post–suffrage 1920s, the Eisenhower 1950s, the #MeToo era. This ever–changing institution has been shaped by war, evangelism, the rise of television and reality TV, and, significantly, by contestants who confounded expectations. Spotlighting individuals, from Yolande Betbeze, whose refusal to pose in swimsuits led an angry sponsor to launch the rival Miss USA contest, to the first black winner, Vanessa Williams, who received death threats and was protected by sharpshooters in her hometown parade, Margot Mifflin shows how women made hard bargains even as they used the pageant for economic advancement. The pageant’s history includes, crucially, those it excluded; the notorious Rule Seven, which required contestants to be “of the white race,” was retired in the 1950s, but no women of color were crowned until the 1980s. In rigorously researched, vibrant chapters that unpack each decade of the pageant, Looking for Miss America examines the heady blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety, and cultural mythology that has fueled this American ritual.
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1640092242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
From an author praised for writing “delicious social history” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times) comes a lively account of memorable Miss America contestants, protests, and scandals—and how the pageant, nearing its one hundredth anniversary, serves as an unintended indicator of feminist progress Looking for Miss America is a fast–paced narrative history of a curious and contradictory institution. From its start in 1921 as an Atlantic City tourist draw to its current incarnation as a scholarship competition, the pageant has indexed women’s status during periods of social change—the post–suffrage 1920s, the Eisenhower 1950s, the #MeToo era. This ever–changing institution has been shaped by war, evangelism, the rise of television and reality TV, and, significantly, by contestants who confounded expectations. Spotlighting individuals, from Yolande Betbeze, whose refusal to pose in swimsuits led an angry sponsor to launch the rival Miss USA contest, to the first black winner, Vanessa Williams, who received death threats and was protected by sharpshooters in her hometown parade, Margot Mifflin shows how women made hard bargains even as they used the pageant for economic advancement. The pageant’s history includes, crucially, those it excluded; the notorious Rule Seven, which required contestants to be “of the white race,” was retired in the 1950s, but no women of color were crowned until the 1980s. In rigorously researched, vibrant chapters that unpack each decade of the pageant, Looking for Miss America examines the heady blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety, and cultural mythology that has fueled this American ritual.
Hearts of Oak
Author: Eddie Robson
Publisher: Tordotcom
ISBN: 1250260523
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
"[Hearts of Oak packs in] the sort of profound and lacerating laughter that Robson's countrymen Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett perfected." –NPR Hearts of Oak is a delightful science fiction adventure from Eddie Robson, the creator of the acclaimed Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully. The buildings grow. And the city expands. And the people of the land are starting to behave abnormally. Or perhaps they’ve always behaved that way, and it’s normality that’s at fault. And the king of the land confers with his best friend, who happens to be his closest advisor, who also happens to be a talking cat. But that’s all perfectly natural and not at all weird. Iona, close to retirement, finds that the world she has always known is nothing like she always believed it to be. There are dark forces . . . not dark. There are uncanny forces . . . no, not uncanny. There are forces, anyway, mostly slightly odd ones, and they appear to be acting in mysterious ways. It’s about town planning, it’s about cats and it’s about the nature of reality. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Publisher: Tordotcom
ISBN: 1250260523
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
"[Hearts of Oak packs in] the sort of profound and lacerating laughter that Robson's countrymen Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett perfected." –NPR Hearts of Oak is a delightful science fiction adventure from Eddie Robson, the creator of the acclaimed Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully. The buildings grow. And the city expands. And the people of the land are starting to behave abnormally. Or perhaps they’ve always behaved that way, and it’s normality that’s at fault. And the king of the land confers with his best friend, who happens to be his closest advisor, who also happens to be a talking cat. But that’s all perfectly natural and not at all weird. Iona, close to retirement, finds that the world she has always known is nothing like she always believed it to be. There are dark forces . . . not dark. There are uncanny forces . . . no, not uncanny. There are forces, anyway, mostly slightly odd ones, and they appear to be acting in mysterious ways. It’s about town planning, it’s about cats and it’s about the nature of reality. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
A Private Cathedral
Author: James Lee Burke
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982151706
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
After finding himself caught up in one of Louisiana’s oldest and bloodiest family rivalries, Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin. The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle. As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life—alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam, and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see killed. A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke’s fortieth book, is his most powerful tale, one that will captivate readers—mixing crime, romance, mythology, horror, and science fiction to produce a thrilling story about the all-consuming, all-conquering power of love.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982151706
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
After finding himself caught up in one of Louisiana’s oldest and bloodiest family rivalries, Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin. The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle. As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life—alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam, and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see killed. A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke’s fortieth book, is his most powerful tale, one that will captivate readers—mixing crime, romance, mythology, horror, and science fiction to produce a thrilling story about the all-consuming, all-conquering power of love.
Sin in the Second City
Author: Karen Abbott
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812975995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history–and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where thirty stunning Everleigh “butterflies” awaited their arrival. Courtesans named Doll, Suzy Poon Tang, and Brick Top devoured raw meat to the delight of Prince Henry of Prussia and recited poetry for Theodore Dreiser. Whereas lesser madams pocketed most of a harlot’s earnings and kept a “whipper” on staff to mete out discipline, the Everleighs made sure their girls dined on gourmet food, were examined by an honest physician, and even tutored in the literature of Balzac. Not everyone appreciated the sisters’ attempts to elevate the industry. Rival Levee madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including an attempt to frame them for the death of department store heir Marshall Field, Jr. But the sisters’ most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who sent the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of “white slavery”——the allegedly rampant practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels. This furor shaped America’s sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House, including the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William Howard Taft, “Hinky Dink” Kenna, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott’s colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters, their world-famous Club, and the perennial clash between our nation’s hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots. Culminating in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers, Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America’s journey from Victorian-era propriety to twentieth-century modernity. Visit www.sininthesecondcity.com to learn more! “Delicious… Abbott describes the Levee’s characters in such detail that it’s easy to mistake this meticulously researched history for literary fiction.” —— New York Times Book Review “ Described with scrupulous concern for historical accuracy…an immensely readable book.” —— Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal “Assiduously researched… even this book’s minutiae makes for good storytelling.” —— Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Karen Abbott has pioneered sizzle history in this satisfyingly lurid tale. Change the hemlines, add 100 years, and the book could be filed under current affairs.” —— USA Today “A rousingly racy yarn.” –Chicago Tribune “A colorful history of old Chicago that reads like a novel… a compelling and eloquent story.” —— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Gorgeously detailed” —— New York Daily News “At last, a history book you can bring to the beach.” —— The Philadelphia Inquirer “Once upon a time, Chicago had a world class bordello called The Everleigh Club. Author Karen Abbott brings the opulent place and its raunchy era alive in a book that just might become this years “The Devil In the White City.” —— Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (cover story) “As Abbott’s delicious and exhaustively researched book makes vividly clear, the Everleigh Club was the Taj Mahal of bordellos.” —— Chicago Sun Times “The book is rich with details about a fast-and-loose Chicago of the early 20th century… Sin explores this world with gusto, throwing light on a booming city and exposing its shadows.” —— Time Out Chicago “[Abbott’s] research enables the kind of vivid description à la fellow journalist Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City that make what could be a dry historic account an intriguing read." – Seattle Times “Abbott tells her story with just the right mix of relish and restraint, providing a piquant guide to a world of sexuality” —— The Atlantic “A rollicking tale from a more vibrant time: history to a ragtime beat.” – Kirkus Reviews “With gleaming prose and authoritative knowledge Abbott elucidates one of the most colorful periods in American history, and the result reads like the very best fiction. Sex, opulence, murder — What's not to love?” —— Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants “A detailed and intimate portrait of the Ritz of brothels, the famed Everleigh Club of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Sisters Minna and Ada attracted the elites of the world to such glamorous chambers as the Room of 1,000 Mirrors, complete with a reflective floor. And isn’t Minna’s advice to her resident prostitutes worthy advice for us all: “Give, but give interestingly and with mystery.”’ —— Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City “Karen Abbott has combined bodice-ripping salaciousness with top-notch scholarship to produce a work more vivid than a Hollywood movie.” —— Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You “Sin in the Second City is a masterful history lesson, a harrowing biography, and - best of all - a superfun read. The Everleigh story closely follows the turns of American history like a little sister. I can't recommend this book loudly enough.” —— Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng “This is a story of debauchery and corruption, but it is also a story of sisterhood, and unerring devotion. Meticulously researched, and beautifully crafted, Sin in the Second City is an utterly captivating piece of history.” —— Julian Rubinstein, author of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812975995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history–and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where thirty stunning Everleigh “butterflies” awaited their arrival. Courtesans named Doll, Suzy Poon Tang, and Brick Top devoured raw meat to the delight of Prince Henry of Prussia and recited poetry for Theodore Dreiser. Whereas lesser madams pocketed most of a harlot’s earnings and kept a “whipper” on staff to mete out discipline, the Everleighs made sure their girls dined on gourmet food, were examined by an honest physician, and even tutored in the literature of Balzac. Not everyone appreciated the sisters’ attempts to elevate the industry. Rival Levee madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including an attempt to frame them for the death of department store heir Marshall Field, Jr. But the sisters’ most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who sent the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of “white slavery”——the allegedly rampant practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels. This furor shaped America’s sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House, including the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William Howard Taft, “Hinky Dink” Kenna, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott’s colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters, their world-famous Club, and the perennial clash between our nation’s hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots. Culminating in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers, Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America’s journey from Victorian-era propriety to twentieth-century modernity. Visit www.sininthesecondcity.com to learn more! “Delicious… Abbott describes the Levee’s characters in such detail that it’s easy to mistake this meticulously researched history for literary fiction.” —— New York Times Book Review “ Described with scrupulous concern for historical accuracy…an immensely readable book.” —— Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal “Assiduously researched… even this book’s minutiae makes for good storytelling.” —— Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Karen Abbott has pioneered sizzle history in this satisfyingly lurid tale. Change the hemlines, add 100 years, and the book could be filed under current affairs.” —— USA Today “A rousingly racy yarn.” –Chicago Tribune “A colorful history of old Chicago that reads like a novel… a compelling and eloquent story.” —— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Gorgeously detailed” —— New York Daily News “At last, a history book you can bring to the beach.” —— The Philadelphia Inquirer “Once upon a time, Chicago had a world class bordello called The Everleigh Club. Author Karen Abbott brings the opulent place and its raunchy era alive in a book that just might become this years “The Devil In the White City.” —— Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (cover story) “As Abbott’s delicious and exhaustively researched book makes vividly clear, the Everleigh Club was the Taj Mahal of bordellos.” —— Chicago Sun Times “The book is rich with details about a fast-and-loose Chicago of the early 20th century… Sin explores this world with gusto, throwing light on a booming city and exposing its shadows.” —— Time Out Chicago “[Abbott’s] research enables the kind of vivid description à la fellow journalist Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City that make what could be a dry historic account an intriguing read." – Seattle Times “Abbott tells her story with just the right mix of relish and restraint, providing a piquant guide to a world of sexuality” —— The Atlantic “A rollicking tale from a more vibrant time: history to a ragtime beat.” – Kirkus Reviews “With gleaming prose and authoritative knowledge Abbott elucidates one of the most colorful periods in American history, and the result reads like the very best fiction. Sex, opulence, murder — What's not to love?” —— Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants “A detailed and intimate portrait of the Ritz of brothels, the famed Everleigh Club of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Sisters Minna and Ada attracted the elites of the world to such glamorous chambers as the Room of 1,000 Mirrors, complete with a reflective floor. And isn’t Minna’s advice to her resident prostitutes worthy advice for us all: “Give, but give interestingly and with mystery.”’ —— Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City “Karen Abbott has combined bodice-ripping salaciousness with top-notch scholarship to produce a work more vivid than a Hollywood movie.” —— Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You “Sin in the Second City is a masterful history lesson, a harrowing biography, and - best of all - a superfun read. The Everleigh story closely follows the turns of American history like a little sister. I can't recommend this book loudly enough.” —— Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng “This is a story of debauchery and corruption, but it is also a story of sisterhood, and unerring devotion. Meticulously researched, and beautifully crafted, Sin in the Second City is an utterly captivating piece of history.” —— Julian Rubinstein, author of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber