Madam: A Novel of New Orleans - Softcover

Lynn, Cari; Martin, Kellie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142180629 ISBN 13: 9780142180624

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2014

Synopsis

When vice had a legal home and jazz was being born—the captivating story of an infamous true-life madam
 
New Orleans, 1900. Mary Deubler makes a meager living as an “alley whore.” That all changes when bible-thumping Alderman Sidney Story forces the creation of a red-light district that’s mockingly dubbed “Storyville.” Mary believes there’s no place for a lowly girl like her in the high-class bordellos of Storyville’s Basin Street, where Champagne flows and beautiful girls turn tricks in luxurious bedrooms.  But with gumption, twists of fate, even a touch of Voodoo, Mary rises above her hopeless lot to become the notorious Madame Josie Arlington.
 
Filled with fascinating historical details and cameos by Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and E. J. Bellocq, Madam is a fantastic romp through The Big Easy and the irresistible story of a woman who rose to power long before the era of equal rights.

About this title

About the Author:

Cari Lynn is a journalist and the author of four books of nonfiction, including The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice with Kathryn Bolkovac, and Leg the Spread: A Woman’s Adventures Inside the Trillion-Dollar Boy’s Club of Commodities Trading. Cari has written for numerous publications, including O, The Oprah Magazine, Health, The Chicago Tribune, and Deadline Hollywood. She has taught at Loyola University and received an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. She lives in Los Angeles. This is her first novel.

Actress Kellie Martin is most fondly remembered as ‘Becca Thatcher’ on the ABC series Life Goes On for which she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She has since appeared on Christy, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Drop Dead Diva and Ghost Whisperer, as well as numerous television movies and feature films. She was most recently seen as Captain Nicole Galassini on Lifetime’s Army Wives. She is the national spokesperson for the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA). In 2001, Reader’s Digest named Kellie a national “Health Hero” on its cover; and Lifetime Television profiled her in Intimate Portrait. She is the owner of the online children’s boutique, ROMPstore.com and a graduate of Yale University. Talk show appearances in the last year include Today, Access Hollywood Live, The Ricki Lake Show, Marie, and Home and Family.  Recent press coverage includes TimeMagazine.com, People.com, CelebrityBabyScoop.com, as well as a regular blog on Parenting.com. Martin lives in LA with her husband and daughter. This is her first novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof.***

Copyright © 2014 by Cari Lynn and Kellie Martin

I come from a long line of whores.

In my nine decades on this earth I have never uttered these words, let alone seen them written, in my own hand, indelibly staring back at me. But now, as a summer storm rages strong enough to send the Pontchartrain right through my front door, I sit with a curious sense of peace and clarity. My past is more than just my own history. Although this story shames me in so many ways, it is the legacy I leave. I must embrace the very truth I spent my life denying.

I come from a long line of whores.

Call them prostitutes, call them women of ill repute, call them madams. It’s of little consequence now to try to soften how they earned their way. But they did earn their way, and in a time when even women of means and good breeding held little hope of achieving anything professionally.

Oh Saint Teresa, what an ingrate I’ve been. Everything I have, everything I am, I owe to them—to her. She’d started life as a bastard girl, not a silver dime to her name. Her family tree was but a stump. And yet, the riches she bestowed upon me: my education, my inheritance . . . this fierce, old Victorian. How the walls moan in the grip of these winds! This house, in all its faded elegance, is all I have left. How I hated that it once lived as a bordello—hot jazz, Voodoo magic, and unspeakable sin oozing from every crevice.

My aunt built this house, but I saved this house. The ghosts would come to me at night, whispering that I couldn’t let it go. While New Orleans raced to obliterate any evidence of the red-light district’s existence, I guarded this door. Overnight, City Hall purged all records of the women who lived and worked here. Even the names of the streets were changed. It took the highest judge’s signature to spare this house from the torch-wielding mob that pillaged and set aflame other bordellos. But how can I blame my beloved city? For I, too, wanted to erase this blight, this scourge on our history.

But it did exist. Storyville was real. And so were the madams. Larger than life, indeed, but flesh and blood through and through, with feelings and smarts even—they were more savvy in business than most businessmen in this town. And yet, they were still just women, devoid of equal rights and treated as vulnerable, useless creatures. These women may have laughed and drunk and frolicked more than most women, but they still ached and loved, cried and prayed, and in their darkest hours, repented.

Now, this house, my house, is all that remains as a testament to an era. If it is this storm that brings down my house, I will go with it. I only hope that this letter and these photographs will survive.

My dearest Aunt Josie, by the grace of God, please forgive me.

 

Anna Deubler Brady

225 Basin Street

New Orleans

August 14, 1997

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0142180629
• ISBN 13: 9780142180624
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 326