The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld

I have always been fascinated and in love with the city of New Orleans. I have forgotten how I came across this title but I was immediately intrigued and added it to my WishList. The history of the city has always been mysterious and The Last Madam gives us a glimpse into the underbelly of it all.

Norma Lenore Badon had a tormented childhood where she and her brother, Elmo, were raised in dire poverty. Shifted about and left for days due to a mother who was battling her own demons, Norma’s family finally intervened and she went to live with relatives in Memphis. Norma’s father could no longer put up with her mother’s waywardness so he left and began a new life and family. Norma was all of twelve of years of age when a family friend, a bootlegger, told her, “Norma, darling, you know it’s going to be rough, but one hair on that thing is stronger than a cable under the ocean (8).” This statement stuck with Norma. While in Memphis, Norma spotted her first set of “hustling girls” at the Gayoso Hotel and was fascinated (8). Norma returned to New Orleans in 1916 and her life in the “life” began. Norma started life as a “woman of the night” as a teenager and worked up her way to The Last Madam of New Orleans.

Norma took her first love, Andy Wallace’s, last name even though she was never married to him. Norma was methodical and very discreet with the way she ran her business. Norma’s shrewd business sense is what kept her in business for decades along with the peculiar details she kept on all her customers in her black book. It was so amazing to read how Norma eluded the police for so many years. It seemed to be every cop’s mission to take down Norma Wallace. Wallace kept most of the cops at bay with payoffs but she mainly outsmarted them. Wiltz shared interesting tidbits on the girls that worked for Norma and how she trained them. The whole story was simply mind boggling but what I had to keep in mind was that this woman was making 2012 money in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Neither prohibition nor the Great Depression slowed Norma’s business down.

In 1962, the police finally won and Norma Wallace went to jail for six weeks. After her jail stay Norma, decided to scale her business down even though she said she was going to get out for good if she ever when to jail. Years earlier Norma had seduced a teenager named Wayne Bernard who would turn out to be her last husband and young enough to be her grandson. She finally gave up the lifestyle and she and Wayne opened the Tchoupitoulas Plantation Restaurant where people still speculated was a cover up for prostitution. Norma Wallace was a powerful woman who never wanted to grow old. Her lifestyle and inner demons tormented her to a tragic death.

There were times when I could not put this book down as I was swooped into the corruption and crime of the New Orleans underworld. I felt the story lagged when Wiltz included so many police facts which seemed like filler or fluff. There were so many names and places that I was familiar with being born and raised in south MS. It’s no doubt that Norma Wallace was the baddest chick in the game. All her power and influence did could not bring her happiness in the end. ( )

I’m unsure how to go about reviewing this book. What do you say about an adequate biography that is interesting because the writer is competent and the subject matter is relevant to your interests? It was a fun-enough read and because I tend to keep any books that are not outright garbage, it will have a place in the biography sections on my shelves. But it was a merely adequate book. Not particularly thought-provoking. I read it when I was ill with H1N1, when Dr. Seuss would have been challenging, but this book went down easy and did not require much of me, even as I found it interesting. It seems like all praise for the book is damning it faintly, but it’s not often a book falls into the middle zone with me, a place where I could take it or leave it. But seeing as I how “took” it, it is on that basis worth discussing.

Read the rest of the review here: http://ireadeverything.com/?p=72 ( )