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Ladataan... The MadamTekijä: Julianna Baggott
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West Virginia, 1924: Alma works in a hosiery mill where the percussive roar of machinery has far too long muffled the engine that is her heart. When Alma's husband decides that they should set out to find their fortune in Florida, Alma has little choice but to leave her three children and ailing mother behind. But when Alma is then abandoned at a Miami dock, she is suddenly forced to make her own way in the world. With the help of a gentle giantess and an opium-addicted prostitute, Alma reclaims her children from the orphanage and forges ahead with an altogether new sort of family. As an act of survival, she chooses to run a house of prostitution, a harvest that relies on lust and weakness in men, of which "the world has a generous, unending supply." The Madam is the story of a house of sin. It is here where Alma's children will learn everything there is to know about "love and loss, sex and betrayal." Based on the real life of the author's grandmother, The Madam is a tale of epic proportions, one that will haunt readers long after its stunning conclusion. Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt. |
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Google Books — Ladataan... LajityypitMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyKongressin kirjaston luokitusArvio (tähdet)Keskiarvo:
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When the novel opens, Alma and Henry, her husband, operate a boarding house for show people. Her tenants include an aged bear, part of an act. She also has three kids. She makes extra money working in a hosiery factory.
Then Henry stupidly buys a trunk found in a shipwreck off the Florida coast, believing it contains treasure. He and Alma leave the children behind — Irving to mind the house (now empty of tenants) and Lettie and Willard at a Catholic orphanage — and head for Florida. The trunk's contents are worthless, of course, and Henry, broken by the disappointment, sends Alma back alone.
She has already quit her job, which didn't pay much anyway, and the boarding house won't support her family, so Alma turns it into a brothel to pay her bills. Prostitution always remains only a prominent background for this story, which has more to do with Alma and her family, as well as a few other major characters. Dimwitted Willard remains in the orphanage, where the rigid routine suits him. Sensitive Irving is soon old enough to start trying to find his own way in the world. Lettie avoids becoming a prostitute, yet her teen romance with an abusive policeman makes the life of a prostitute seem almost idyllic.
By the novel's end, Alma discovers there is something else, even more disagreeable than opening a whorehouse, that she must do for the good of her family.
This story about making difficult choices is powerful stuff that probably generated some interesting book club discussions when the novel was new. ( )