Sin and the Second City

My book club, which I really really love, is reading Sin and the Second City, by Karen Abbott right now.

Set in turn of the 20th century Chicago, Sin and the Second City explores the immoral Levee district.What with all the pimps, whores, drunks, crooked politicians and zealous preachers, how can a book like this not be entertaining?

The narrative is focused on the Everleigh Sisters, the constantly self-reinventing, upscale madams who ran Chicago's most exclusive 'resort'. The Everleighs keep their girls super and their boys happy - their's is no ordinary whorehouse!

This book is very absorbing and entertaining - it reads very much like a novel.

However, I've been somewhat annoyed by Abbott's seaming derision of the folks who were fighting to close down Chicago's 'vice-ridden' red light district.

For some reason, Abbott has chosen to portray those fighting against 'white slavery' - the practice of kidnapping unsuspecting girls and forcing them to work as whores - in a rather condescending and negative way. They are all either opportunists, mis-lead zealots, stuck up matrons or bumbling idiots. No matter how high-class Minna and Ada Everleigh might have been, the plight of Chicago's prostitutes was not very funny... though Karen Abbott portrays it that way. I would expect a more realistic representation out of a work of such well researched non-fiction.

Also - and this is something Polly will probably understand - Abbott uses the same exact description of one of the Everleigh whores two times. I'm talking word-for-word! What poor copy editing!! When I complained about this to Alex's mom, she laughed and said that she would never in a million years even notice something like that... so I guess maybe I'm a bit pedantic, but WHATEVER! It just bothered me, OK?!

Well, now that I've gotten all that off my chest, I can tell you that this book is very entertaining and a quick summer read. So I do recommend it.

You can read some excerpts on the Sin and the Second City book site.

Comments

[Polly Poppins]

Duplicate passages drive me buggy.
Duplicate passages drive me buggy.