I
love Chicago! I consider it the most AMAZING
city in the United States. Whether you’re into the arts, history, shopping, cuisine
or sports, it can be found in The Windy City, all served up with genuine
Midwestern hospitality (NYC and LA should take a page out of the how-to-be-awesome
Chicago handbook!). So, when I received Sin
in the Second City as a gift, I couldn’t wait to jump right in.
The
book revolves around Minna and Ada Everleigh and the upscale brothel they opened
in Chicago in the early 1900s. These Southern sisters were true marketing
geniuses, knowing that if you had the best—attractive prostitutes, decadent
food and drink, musical entertainment and beautiful décor—you could charge a
fortune for the privilege of enjoying everything the Everleigh Club had to
offer. Minna and Ada, unlike their rivals, seemed to know the secret of how to properly
treat employees, customers and politicians to ensure their establishment maintained
a reputation as the crème de la crème of whorehouses in the city’s Levee
district. And these ladies were laughing all the way to the bank. Like the
Donald Trump of madams, it is alleged the Everleighs amassed a fortune worth
nearly $20 million by today’s standards. Crazy!
While
I don’t read much non-fiction, the first half of the book provided intriguing, well-researched
accounts of the corruption among the city’s leaders, the cut-throat competition
between the madams, the profession itself and, of course, the infamous Everleigh
sisters. Unfortunately, the second half of the book focused almost exclusively on
the crusade by religious activists to abolish the sex trade, not only in
Chicago but across the country. With their claims that young women didn’t
become prostitutes by choice but rather were forced into the profession (it was
labeled “white slavery” by religious zealots), Reverend Ernest Bell and his
followers worked tirelessly to shut down the red-light district of Chicago. By
this point in the book, Karen Abbott’s tone came across just a bit too
preachy for my liking and my interest was waning. While I’m not trying to lessen
the seriousness of human trafficking, this book left me annoyed that some
people just aren’t content unless they’re ruining the fun for others.
