Once again, New Orleans history teaches us that our fair city has enough characters and intrigue to keep our lurid sensibilities sated without ever needing to turn to Perez Hilton or TMZ.  In The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld, author Christine Wiltz captures the life and times of the notorious French Quarter madam, Norma Desmond, and lays out Desmond’s life in surprisingly intimate detail.  From her dalliances with movie stars and politicos to her collusions with law enforcement officials and her established (albeit quiet) position in New Orleans’ upper-crust society, the pages of The Last Madam unfold one saucy story to another, each one leaving you, mouth agape, shaking your head in incredulity.

The Last Madam is based, in large part, on the self-recorded accounts that Norma Desmond made in the early 1970’s in her home on the Northshore.  Spanning  almost seven decades, these accounts begin with Desmond’s troubled childhood in early-1900’s Mid City and follow her bumpy rise in power, chronicling her early education in prostitution and showmanship, the development of her business acumen, and the stubborn pride that fueled her risky livelihood.

Wiltz sums up the guiding – yet paradoxical – principles that propelled Desmond to fortune and infamy in the book’s opening pages:

Norma’s life revolved around sex, money, and power; her scandalous escapades made front-page headlines.  In her autobiography she wanted to be perceived as smart, classy, glamorous, and generous woman who was independent yet always had a powerful, sexy, and usually younger man in tow.  But the reality was much more complicated, an ambitious, domineering, yet vulnerable woman who was glamorous, yes, but also vain and afraid of growing old.  She proudly attached herself to a man thirty-nine years younger, saw herself through his eyes as sexy and seductive and through the public eye as outrageous and exciting, but she did not see that her pride was leading her into the dark embrace of obsessive love.

Wiltz presents readers with an emotionally fragmented woman who frightens police chiefs, seduces teenagers, dances in Gentilly barrooms until the wee hours, and adores horses.  Desmond’s early-mid-century New Orleans isn’t so different from our own – she just makes sure to suck the marrow from every moment she has in her vain attempt to find happiness, success, validation, and love.

Following Desmond and her ladies at 1026 Conti through generations of local political and police administrations, Wiltz brings alive the culture of early twentieth-century New Orleans – names, places, and events all seem oddly familiar, but, from this perspective of the madam who knew everyone’s dirty laundry, the history takes on a new flavor.  The Last Madam shows us in a wildly entertaining way what we already knew – that New Orleans is a really small town…

 

 

Caroline Stivers is a born-again Southerner and reformed Texan.  After spending several years in the northeast freezing, forcing bland food down her gullet, and not saying “hello” to people on the street, she realized that she loves the sweaty summers, rich food, and friendly faces of the south.  She is now a proud Bywater resident, busy renovating a money pit, working to get first-generation students into college, and pondering what to do with a recently obtained Arts Administration degree.