The Last Madam: A Life In The New Orleans Underworld offers an affecting portrayal of the woman who for 40 years ran the last successful high-class brothel in New Orleans - they actually called themselves "landladies" in New Orleans, though that didn't change the nature of their business: running houses of prostitution in the city's wide-open French Quarter. Beginning in 1920, when she was still in her teens, Norma Wallace managed a high-class bordello for an affluent and influential clientele, evading the police and asserting her sexual freedom "like a man" despite the nominal confines of several rickety marriages. Obsessive love for a man 39 years her junior and her first-ever jail term finally put Wallace out of the business in the mid-1960s, but her memories were still vivid and raunchy when she tape-recorded material for an autobiography in the two years before her suicide in 1974.
This book was a great read and had it all – love, murder, suspense, corruption and loads of humour with some vivid characters. You can tell that Norma was a strong, courageous woman with a quick wit as the book is filled with her anecdotes and escapades that keep you wanting to turn the page to find out what happens next.
The writer, Christine Wiltz, did a fantastic job of bringing Wallace’s tape recordings to life, but it took a few chapters to adjust to her writing style, which at times would leap to (or back to) other eras and you had to make sure you caught up, but once you adjusted to her original writing style, you couldn’t put it down.
Also, I’m not sure if it was because I was reading a kindle version, but some of the formatting didn’t quite translate across properly, but for the cheaper kindle price it is not something that would put me off buying another one.
One of the best and most interesting biographies I have read in a long time.
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