Sin in the Second City

July 30, 2007
At the dawn of the 20th century, there was no more famous-or notorious-brothel in America than the Everleigh Club in Chicago. Run by two sisters with an all-American talent for self-invention, the club set new standards for opulence as well as harlots' rights. Abbott's scintillating tale of prostitution and scandal, however, is not well-served by this plodding audio rendition. Bean emerges as a narrator with a curious double standard: for the madams, aldermen and other colorful characters who populated the Levee red light district a century ago, she creates unique voices full of dialect, humor and pathos. For the reformers who sought to shut down the whorehouses, though, her vocal creativity falls flat; the same schoolmarmish voice is used for every religious or legal reformer in Chicago. It's a shame that the audio book couldn't utilize the more than three dozen sumptuous photographs and illustrations that grace the print edition, showing the club in all its gaudy Victorian splendor and providing mugs of the Levee's many legendary figures. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 16).

April 16, 2007
Freelance journalist Abbott's vibrant first book probes the titillating milieu of the posh, world-famous Everleigh Club brothel that operated from 1900 to 1911 on Chicago's Near South Side. The madams, Ada and Minna Everleigh, were sisters whose shifting identities had them as traveling actors, Edgar Allan Poe's relatives, Kentucky debutantes fleeing violent husbands and daughters of a once-wealthy Virginia lawyer crushed by the Civil War. While lesser whorehouses specialized in deflowering virgins, beatings and bondage, the Everleighs spoiled their whores with couture gowns, gourmet meals and extraordinary salaries. The bordello—which boasted three stringed orchestras and a room of 1,000 mirrors—attracted such patrons as Theodore Dreiser, John Barrymore and Prussian Prince Henry. But the successful cathouse was implicated in the 1905 shooting of department store heir Marshall Field Jr. and inevitably became the target of rivals and reformers alike. Madam Vic Shaw tried to frame the Everleighs for a millionaire playboy's drug overdose, Rev. Ernest Bell preached nightly outside the club and ambitious Chicago state's attorney Clifford Roe built his career on the promise of obliterating white slavery. With colorful characters, this is an entertaining, well-researched slice of Windy City history. Photos.

June 15, 2007
Mining the sources of the "purity journal" "Vigilance" and its predecessor, "Philanthropist", as well as Chicago newspapers, government reports, and other archival sources, journalist and first-time author Abbott chronicles the history of the Everleigh Club that operated on Chicago's Near South Side from 1900 to 1911. At this renowned high-class brothel, enterprising sisters Ada and Minna Everleigh challenged the stereotype of the victimized immature woman by hiring only willing adults whose comportment, education, meals, and health they closely monitored. Paradoxically, "scarlet sisters" in the club had to abide by stated rules, such as abstaining from drugs in order to remain at a house for which there was a wait list of job seekers. Protected for a while through its patronage by politicians, sports figures, businessmen, and writers, the club finally succumbed when a moral purity campaign closed it and the other bordellos in the Windy City's red light district. Abbott's character sketches of individuals such as "Bathhouse" John Coughlin, Michael "Hinky-Dink" Kenna, and James "Big Jim" Colosino make this engaging study read like a novel. A complement to similarly focused studies of New York City, e.g., Timothy Gilfoyle's "City of Eros" and Elizabeth Clement's "Love for Sale"; recommended for the general public and social historians alike.Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2007
Chicago, the saying goes, aint ready for reform. It certainly wasnt in 1899, when sisters Ada and Minna Everleigh (real name: Simms) opened their brothel. As Abbotts jaunty history relates, their whorehouse was not a tawdry bang barn for johns with a nickel but a glitzy palace of paid pleasure for plutocrats. Ada and Minnas Everleigh Club prospered, protected bypayoffs to Chicagos legendary political crooks Bathhouse Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna, but the bordellos brazenness mobilizedmoralists alarmed by vice, so-called white slavery in particular. An entertaining read, by turns bawdy and sad, aswhen a courtesan ends up dead, Abbotts account extends beyond local history because the campaign against Ada and Minna had lasting national effects: the closure of urban red-light districts and the passage of the federal Mann Act concerning prostitution.Abbott adroitly evokesthe cathouse atmosphere, butit isthe rapier-sharp character sketches ofthe cast that best show off her authorial skills and will keepreaderscontinually bemused as they learn about the lives and times of two madams.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)