My Notorious Life
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- 8,49 €
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- 8,49 €
Publisher Description
'In the end, they celebrated. They bragged. They got me finally, was their feeling. They said I would take my secrets to the grave.
They should be so lucky.'
Defiant and daring, Axie Muldoon claws her way from the streets up to the dizzying heights of New York society. But as her fame grows and her name hits the headlines, her reputation as the most scandalous midwife of her time begins to threaten everything she holds dear. And one crusading official will not rest until he has brought about the downfall of 'Madame X'.
It will take all of Axie's cunning to save both herself and those she loves from ruin…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Loosely based on the life of Ann Trow Lohman (aka Madame Restell), the infamous abortionist who became known as "the Wickedest Woman in New York," Manning's second rags-to-riches novel (after Whitegirl) nimbly resurrects the bold woman behind the scandalous headlines. Manning's Axie Muldoon endured a scrappy childhood as the fierce and foul-mouthed eldest daughter of Irish immigrants living amidst the filth of lower Manhattan. She began her midwifery apprenticeship at 14, and learned when to administer "Lunar Tablets for the relief of Female Obstruction," before becoming the renowned Madame X with a thriving business (her newspaper ad reads "Renowned Female Physician") of her own. Manning paints a vivid portrait of this daring yet deeply compassionate woman who is willing to flout convention and defy the law in the name of women's reproductive rights. While Muldoon's public battle against the "lying weevils and scandalmongers of the New York press" as well as old codger Comstock the Chairman of the Society for the Suppression of Vice take center stage throughout the latter half, it's the details of Madame X's private life, told in her thick Irish brogue about the search for her long-lost siblings, her fiery relationship with her devoted husband, and her growth as a mother that lend a human face to a this sensational figure.
