The Last Madam: A Life In The New Orleans Underworld

by Christine Wiltz

Overview

The incredible life of French Quarter legend Norma Wallace — and a portrait of an era in New Orleans history rife with charm and decadence ("Wonderful. . . admirably recreates a slice of a life otherwise devoured by time" — Michael Lewis, 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 tape-recorded 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 there-and, like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Philistines at the Hedgerow, resurrects a vanished secret world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306810121
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	03/13/2001
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	240,341
Product dimensions:	5.95(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Christine Wiltz, a native of New Orleans, is the author of five novels, including The Killing Circle, A Diamond Before You Die, and The Emerald Lizard, all set in New Orleans and featuring Irish Channel detective Neal Rafferty. Wiltz's novel The Glass House was praised by the New York Times as "unflinchingly honest" and a book that "needs to be read on both sides of Convent Street." She has written for the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. She's been a writer in residence and adjunct professor at both Tulane and Loyola Universities. Wiltz lives in New Orleans.

What People are Saying About This

Douglas Brinkley

Written with poetic elegance and biographical sympathy, The Last Madam is a spellbinding journey back in time you won't want to miss. Douglas Brinkley, author of The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House

Editorial Reviews

"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

"Wonderful....Admirably re-creates a little slice of a life otherwise devoured by time."—New York Times Book Review

"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

"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

"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

"Juicy, jaunty."—Entertainment Weekly

"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

"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

"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 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)

"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

From the Publisher

Mystery and nonfiction writer Wiltz (Glass House, etc.) offers an affecting portrayal of the woman who for 40 years ran the last successful high-class brothel in New Orleans, and of her vanished demimonde. Born into poverty in 1901, Norma Wallace became a streetwalker in her teens, but by the early 1920s had decided that a more comfortable, profitable living lay in being a "landlady"--running a discreet, lavish, politically protected house of prostitution. Shrewd and ambitious--and a strict madam--she quickly became an underworld force within the wide-open New Orleans of the 1920s-1940s, enjoying numerous romances along the way with a Capone-linked gangster, then-blind champion bantamweight Pete Herman and entertainer Phil Harris, among others. Norma's first serious arrest came only in 1962, and it sped her retirement a few years later. Wiltz, who makes excellent use of Norma's tape-recorded, unpublished memoirs (Norma died in 1974), understands that this tale is necessarily one of corruption and acquiescence in mid-century urban America: Norma could not have prospered without the ritualized, baroque corruption of local law enforcement as well as the town's leading economic lights and political figures, who often checked their pious selves at Norma's door. Wiltz thus 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. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The book tells the wonderful story of Norma Wallace, who for more than 40 years ran the best-known whorehouse in town. In so doing she apparently became not merely a great French Quarter character but a kind of power broker. Mayors, governors, gangsters, prizefighters, movie stars and an endless parade of prominent New Orleans gentlemen came through her doors. Wiltz reports that when Wallace was asked in the late 1950's if there was any important man she didn't have in her pocket, she had to think about it. ''The president,'' she finally said....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. Wallace must be counted among the latter. She had the wit of Dorothy Parker and the instinct for self-dramatization of Tallulah Bankhead.
—The New York Times Book Review

Michael Lewis