AudibleInk - Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul

List Price: $15.00 Our Price: $10.20 Your Save: $ 4.80 ( 32% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 306.74097731109041 EAN: 9780812975994 ISBN: 0812975995 Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 400 Publication Date: 2008-06-10 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Release Date: 2008-06-10 Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Editorial Reviews: 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
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Skipping thru time Comment: As fascinating as the stories are, and as meticulous as the research appears to be, the structure of the narrative was frustrating. The chapters jump around and one loses all sense of chronology. I wish the book was better organized. I really wanted to like it more. Customer Rating: Summary: History lesson + page turning tale of scandal, devotion and two sisters way ahead of their time Comment: "Well behaved women rarely make history" - if that's the case, the famed Everleigh sisters might as well be the spokeswomen for the concept. These classy and conniving sisters revamped the lucrative brothel industry of the early1900's Chicago (well, the entire nation to be more precise). A little history, a little fiction and a lot of time travel - this story takes you back to a lavish smoky parlor filled with characters as opulent as the décor. I devoured it in days that felt like minutes. Customer Rating: Summary: Ghosts in the Loop Comment: When I was five years old, Reading Rainbow's Lavar Burton told me weekly that books can be magic. Come to find out, he was right; books can transport you through time. Karen Abbott has dusted off her wand and brought the magic. Like Devil in the White City before it, Sin in the Second City is all encompassing. The vast amount of information Abbott gives about Chicago in the early 1900s allows us to feel like we are there. We see the city's magnificent graystone mansions, hear its El cars rattle past on the tracks. Abbott navigates so well the balancing act of providing lots of technical details - about Chicago politics, Levee rules and regulations, and court cases involving the Mann Act - while still focusing her attention on the major players, namely the Everleigh sisters, so that we do get some historical background but the book reads more like fiction than a text. We get a sense of who these women were in their personal lives. Clever and thought-provoking quotes from Minna provide an introduction to several chapters. These sisters are smart and funny and have very modern concerns; they are not locked in time. Perhaps the cornerstone of history appreciation is realizing that people always have and always will be basically the same. Abbott brings this realization about in the most non-intrusive way, by including the little humanizing details like Big Jim Colosimo's penchant for cooking up a big pot of spaghetti during social calls and Minna's Everleigh's routine carriage ride to the bank to make deposits with a choice "butterfly" in tow. As a former teacher, I wonder if we are doing the best job we could as a society to preserve and bring history back to life. Thanks to Abbott, I can see the ghosts of Vic Shaw and company carousing along Michigan Avenue. To her credit, not only does Abbott bring the residents of the Levee district back to life, but she portrays them fairly, with a sympathetic voice, despite the nature of their enterprise. It would be so easy to discount the Levee aldermen and their henchmen or any of the Everleighs' bitter competitors as villains, but Abbott appreciates the gray areas and allows the reader to make his or her own value judgments. The structure of the book is also worth mentioning. Abbott does an excellent job weaving in and out of topics. It's the literary equivalent of collecting random photographs and putting them into a scrapbook so that they make sense juxtaposed. Details about Bell and other reformers and the day-to-day goings on in the development of the fight against white slavery fit seamlessly between the more salacious stories of the Everleigh courtesans. Ultimately, Abbott tells a scintillating story while simultaneously bringing up the BIG issues - bias and sensationalism in media coverage, the hypocrisy of some of the religious reformers, and the fight for women's suffrage and for fair wages - namely how the investigation into white slavery served as an opportunity for women to insert themselves into political discourse. Overall, an amazing piece! I highly recommend it. Customer Rating: Summary: I Love the Naughty Ladies Comment: What I love about this book: - Terrific writing with vivid details about the lives of the Everleigh Sisters - A real feel for what it was like to live and work in the demimonde at the turn of the century - A sense of drama with the stories of the rivalries between brothels, the religious movement and the machinations of the political and legal systems. - Excellent insight into the greater social forces in regards to sexuality and women This is just a fascinating read - if you're like me, you won't put it down until the last page (and i am a notorious half-finisher, so that's quite a feat!) A fantastic choice for book clubs too! I *highly* recommend this - one chapter in and I guarantee that you will become a rabid fan like me. Customer Rating: Summary: CANNOT PUT IT DOWN Comment: For those that love to read a book that grabs them and doesn't let go - Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City is a MUST. Not only does the reader get an enjoyable history lesson- but along the way Karen shows us how so much of what we know and experience today - is not new at all. The portrait of the Everleigh sisters is simply fascinating, Chicago of the early 1900's was made for Abbott's prose - and the best part is - She's writing another book. People will read again - and Karen is one of the reasons why. Read this book. Its SUPER. More Reviews