Overview

First time in paperback: ""Wonderful...Re-creates a little slice of a life otherwise devoured by time. ""-New York Times Book Review. In 1916, at age fifteen, Norma Wallace arrived in New Orleans. Sexy and shrewd, she quickly went from streetwalker to madam and by 1920 had opened what became a legendary house of prostitution. There she entertained a steady stream of governors, gangsters, and movie stars until she was arrested at last in 1962. Shortly before she died in 1974, she taperecorded her memories-the scandalous stories of a powerful woman who had the city's politicians in her pocket and whose lovers included the twenty-five-year-old boy next door, whom she married when she was sixty-four. Combining those tapes with original research, Christine Wiltz chronicles not just Norma's rise and fall but also the social history of New Orleans, thick with the vice and corruption that flourished thereand, like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Philistines at the Hedgerow, resurrects a vanished secret world.

Full Product Details

9780306810121

Table of Contents

Reviews

Affecting...Wiltz elevates a sometimes impeccably assembled historical narrative above its elementary bawdy elements into something more elegant and fragile: the resurrection of a secret world like those uncovered by Luc Sante and James Ellroy. --Publishers Weekly French Quarter madam Norma Wallace was one of those characters who could flourish only in New Orleans...She served jail time. She received the key to the city. And she died a violent, mysterious death. --New Orleans Times-Picayune In telling [Wallace's] remarkable story, Christine Wiltz has vividly re-created the New Orleans underworld in the first half of the 20th century. It is hardly pretty, but it is never less than absorbing....A journey of revelation, the discovery of a secret world. --The State (Columbia, SC) In this world there are great characters who have no idea that they are great characters, and great characters who are fully aware of their greatness. [Norma] Wallace must be counted among the latter. She had the wit of Dorothy Parker and the instinct for self-dramatization of Tallulah Bankhead. --Michael Lewis, New York Times Book Review In New Orleans the water table is so high the underworld is never far beneath the surface. The Last Madam is a fascinating study of the unrivaled Mistress of that world, delightful and serious by turns, an insider's look at an insider's life in a city both know and love. --Valerie Martin, author of Mary Reilly Juicy, jaunty. --Entertainment Weekly The arresting story of a domineering, conflicted American businesswoman and a vivid social study of the intimate cohabitation of politics and vice in the Crescent City. --Minneapolis Star-Tribune The book takes the reader by the hand just as Norma's girls did when they took a customer into one of her upstairs rooms. It's always reassuring to be in the hands of a pro, and The Last Madam gives the reader this feeling right from the get-go. It provides as good an experience in its way as Wallace must have in hers. --David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune Wiltz...roams beyond Wallace's professional and romantic affairs to spotlight her state's infamously crooked politics, the licensed depravities of the French Quarter, and Wallace's humorous attempt to realize a pastoral ideal in the backwoods amid a community of righteous citizens. --Kirkus Reviews Wonderful....Admirably re-creates a little slice of a life otherwise devoured by time. --New York Times Book Review Christine Wiltz has done a remarkable and rare thing: she has captured perfectly the essential, earthy complexity of the most fascinating city on this continent. The Last Madam is an exhilarating mardi gras of a book. --Robert Olen Butler

Wonderful....Admirably re-creates a little slice of a life otherwise devoured by time. --New York Times Book Review The book takes the reader by the hand just as Norma's girls did when they took a customer into one of her upstairs rooms. It's always reassuring to be in the hands of a pro, and The Last Madam gives the reader this feeling right from the get-go. It provides as good an experience in its way as Wallace must have in hers. --David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune In telling [Wallace's] remarkable story, Christine Wiltz has vividly re-created the New Orleans underworld in the first half of the 20th century. It is hardly pretty, but it is never less than absorbing....A journey of revelation, the discovery of a secret world. --The State (Columbia, SC) Wiltz...roams beyond Wallace's professional and romantic affairs to spotlight her state's infamously crooked politics, the licensed depravities of the French Quarter, and Wallace's humorous attempt to realize a pastoral ideal in the backwoods amid a community of righteous citizens. --Kirkus Reviews In New Orleans the water table is so high the underworld is never far beneath the surface. The Last Madam is a fascinating study of the unrivaled Mistress of that world, delightful and serious by turns, an insider's look at an insider's life in a city both know and love. --Valerie Martin, author of Mary Reilly Affecting...Wiltz elevates a sometimes impeccably assembled historical narrative above its elementary bawdy elements into something more elegant and fragile: the resurrection of a secret world like those uncovered by Luc Sante and James Ellroy. --Publishers Weekly Juicy, jaunty. --Entertainment Weekly The arresting story of a domineering, conflicted American businesswoman and a vivid social study of the intimate cohabitation of politics and vice in the Crescent City. --Minneapolis Star-Tribune Christine Wiltz has done a remarkable and rare thing: she has captured perfectly the essential, earthy complexity of the most fascinating city on this continent. The Last Madam is an exhilarating mardi gras of a book. --Robert Olen Butler In this world there are great characters who have no idea that they are great characters, and great characters who are fully aware of their greatness. [Norma] Wallace must be counted among the latter. She had the wit of Dorothy Parker and the instinct for self-dramatization of Tallulah Bankhead. --Michael Lewis, New York Times Book Review French Quarter madam Norma Wallace was one of those characters who could flourish only in New Orleans...She served jail time. She received the key to the city. And she died a violent, mysterious death. --New Orleans Times-Picayune

The book takes the reader by the hand just as Norma's girls did when they took a customer into one of her upstairs rooms. It's always reassuring to be in the hands of a pro, and The Last Madam gives the reader this feeling right from the get-go. It provides as good an experience in its way as Wallace must have in hers. --David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune In telling [Wallace's] remarkable story, Christine Wiltz has vividly re-created the New Orleans underworld in the first half of the 20th century. It is hardly pretty, but it is never less than absorbing....A journey of revelation, the discovery of a secret world. --The State (Columbia, SC) Wiltz...roams beyond Wallace's professional and romantic affairs to spotlight her state's infamously crooked politics, the licensed depravities of the French Quarter, and Wallace's humorous attempt to realize a pastoral ideal in the backwoods amid a community of righteous citizens. --Kirkus Reviews In New Orleans the water table is so high the underworld is never far beneath the surface. The Last Madam is a fascinating study of the unrivaled Mistress of that world, delightful and serious by turns, an insider's look at an insider's life in a city both know and love. --Valerie Martin, author of Mary Reilly Affecting...Wiltz elevates a sometimes impeccably assembled historical narrative above its elementary bawdy elements into something more elegant and fragile: the resurrection of a secret world like those uncovered by Luc Sante and James Ellroy. --Publishers Weekly Juicy, jaunty. --Entertainment Weekly The arresting story of a domineering, conflicted American businesswoman and a vivid social study of the intimate cohabitation of politics and vice in the Crescent City. --Minneapolis Star-Tribune Christine Wiltz has done a remarkable and rare thing: she has captured perfectly the essential, earthy complexity of the most fascinating city on this continent. The Last Madam is an exhilarating mardi gras of a book. --Robert Olen Butler In this world there are great characters who have no idea that they are great characters, and great characters who are fully aware of their greatness. [Norma] Wallace must be counted among the latter. She had the wit of Dorothy Parker and the instinct for self-dramatization of Tallulah Bankhead. --Michael Lewis, New York Times Book Review Wonderful....Admirably re-creates a little slice of a life otherwise devoured by time. --New York Times Book Review French Quarter madam Norma Wallace was one of those characters who could flourish only in New Orleans...She served jail time. She received the key to the city. And she died a violent, mysterious death. --New Orleans Times-Picayune

Author Information

Christine Wiltz is the author of four novels. She lives in her native New Orleans.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available