America's Helen of Troy

See, I can find a tenuous theme to link together all these random books that fall into my lap.  This weekend, I set myself a goal of finishing at least three of the books that I have been dabbling in for months.  One down:  American Eve - Evelyn Nesbit/Stanford White - The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century by Paula Uruburu (herewithing to be referred to as A-Eve).  While I longed to read more about the tempting wiles and motives of Helen in The Song of Achilles, Uruburu gives more than equal time to A-Eve Evelyn, her paramour White and her husband Thaw who murders White.

Evelyn was the real person, the young teenager actually, behind all those turn of the Century advertising photographs, the Heidi Klum, or for you older Slackers, the Twiggy of her day.  She came from Pittsburgh equipped with her own stage mother of sorts, a widow with no real intention of working herself, but who realized she could make money, fame and connections by exploiting her daughter's looks.  Evelyn eventually breaks out of Pennsylvania and hits New York City and the stage.  There she catches the eye of Stanford White, the famous architect and notorious seducer of vulnerable, naive young women.  Evelyn's mother practically throws her at White because she collects rent and living expenses as well.

The tale exposes naivete against lust, at a time when the entire country was moving from a time of high morals and honesty to an era of selfishness, corruption and titillation.  She was the personification of her time, the scandal journalists needed to sell their headlines.  

Uruburu is an English professor at Hofstra who was looking for examples for her course, Daughters of Decadence (I want to audit).  Occasionally, her use of alliteration is excessive and obvious, but the story moves along both quickly and comprehensively ... unless of course, like me the reader is juggling an entire book shelf of material at the same time.