Thursday, November 19, 2009

Sin in the Second City, by Karen Abbott


What a strange book! This is a biography, of sorts, of the Chicago madams Minna and Ada Everleigh. They were proprietors of a successful house of prostitution in the early 1900s. The author writes about their business and the surrounding politics of the time.

It wasn't really very interesting to me, but I admire the author's Schama -style invention of dialogue and event details to fill out a historical text.