{"product_id":"last-madam-a-life-in-the-new-orleans-underworld","title":"Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe 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, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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 \u003ci\u003eMidnight in the Garden of Good and Evil\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePhilistines at the Hedgerow, \u003c\/i\u003e resurrects a vanished secret world.","brand":"Christine Wiltz","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46331764474092,"sku":"9780306810121","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9780306810121.jpg?v=1743535910","url":"https:\/\/intl.allstora.com\/products\/last-madam-a-life-in-the-new-orleans-underworld","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}