Following my detour from the main route of the travels through the States, I continue off the beaten track, farther into the back alleys, to Chicago at the turn of the century, to that glamorous house of ill repute, the Everleigh Club (can we all say "ever lay") operated by two reconstructed sisters, Ada and Minna Everleigh/Lester. Dedicated to catering to the richest of debauchees, these madams guaranteed the most beautiful, educated and healthy harlots, sumptuous themed rooms, ragtime music played on a gilded piano, and fine gourmet foods washed down with champagne. (The Club was reputed to be the first place where it was drunk out of a "lady's" slipper, supposedly while a Prussian prince was being royally entertained.)
Much like the depiction of the forces of good against evil in Charlatan, Abbott runs parallel story lines between the characters in the red light district and the nascent anti-white slave trafficking movement. However, neither side is as colorful or humorous as those medical quacks in Kansas and their uprooting nemesis, the AMA. SITSC is also reminescent of The Devil in the White City, by Eric Larsen, which is set a few years before the opening of the Everleigh, during the 1893 World's Fair, when naive girls coming to Chi-town were similarly susceptible to all kinds of peril, perdition and death.
As far as our pursuit of place's part in a particular story, Chicago is authentic. All the politicians are up for sale; gangsters hobnob with ward leaders; scions of the wealthiest families succumb eagerly to the temptations of the Levee. Ada and Minna chose it as the perfect spot for their brothel and it is more than a setting for their lives -- it enables and directs their adventures.
The book shows that the seeds of corrupt big business, Mafia smugglers and hitmen, and authors of great exposees and poetry, all were incubated in the Windy City long before the Roaring 20s.
Once again, the oddest connections show up. Foreshadowing another State, Abbott discusses the use of the Mann Act in the divorce proceedings of Frank Lloyd Wright. Theodore Dreisler and Edgar Lee Masters relive old times with Minna and Ada in the 40s when they are living in the Upper West Side. Joshilyn Jackson reappears in the acknowledgements as a member of Abbott's Atlanta writing group.
And so now, despite this being Lenten season, I continue to be lead into temptations and dens of iniquity, as I head to the casinos of Nevada.
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