Storyville: Amazon.ca: Lois Battle: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Though this period novel takes its title from the notorious red-light area of New Orleans where prostitution was legalized from 1898 to 1917, Battle more often calls the area "the District," the epithet New Orleaneans familiarly used. With the finesse she demonstrated in such books as The Past Is Another Country , she dramatizes the lives of two women at opposite ends of the social scale. Kate is an innocent country girl who is seduced by a rake and abandoned, with little recourse but to become a woman "in the life." Beautiful and appealing, she snares the heart of young Lawrence Randsome, scion of an old, distinguished New Orleans family. Meanwhile, his mother, transplanted Boston blueblood, bluestocking and suffragette Julia Randsome, has discovered that her husband Charles owns whorehouses in the District, and their marriage is damaged by her bitterness and lack of trust. Eventually, tragedy adds another dimension to their domestic squabbling; then Julia befriends the luckless Kate and comes into her own as an activist for women's rights. Battle deftly depicts the hardworking, tawdry denizens of the District, contrasting their existence to the decadent lives of many of New Orleans's first families. Her smoothly written novel nicely integrates background details (from the Spanish-American War to the Panama Canal to the social pecking order of the period) and features such secondary characters as an egregiously selfish mother-in-law and a brothel madam with a heart of gold--both credibly drawn. 75,000 first printing; Literary Guild dual main selection; Doubleday Book Club selection.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

The story of two very strong yet opposite women surrounded by sin, seduction, and sex is set in Storyville, a New Orleans hotbed for temptation, where prostitution was recently legalized. 75,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild Main. Doubleday.

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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews

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3 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

3.3 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Could have been much better..., July 1 2004

By

Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Storyville (Paperback)

I picked up Lois Battle's Storyville because of my love of New Orleans and my fascination with its history. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to expectations.

Storyville was the Red Light District in New Orleans-legal from 1898 until 1917. This story bounces between the lives of the denizens of The District, and those of an upper-crust family, the Ransome's. Their lives intersect when the Ransome's son falls in love with a prostitute, which causes a "downward spiral of events" that will change all their lives forever.

Storyville starts off with great promise, and Battle makes a good effort to develop her characters. But halfway through, the characters seem to get bogged down in the plot, and the ending is especially weak and unbelievable. Also, many of the characters are unlikable from the beginning, but even those that I originally liked became loathsome by the end.

This book does offer a few redeeming tidbits. The characters who work in Storyville are quite colorful, and the description of a meeting of the madams of The District (including one drag queen) is quite entertaining. The book touches on such topics (however lightly) as the suffrage movement, the Spanish American War, the building of the Panama Canal and even some background on the Civil War. There are a few morsels of history about New Orleans and The District that are interesting and informative, but there aren't enough of them.

So, if you're really interested in reading about Storyville, there are much better books to be had.

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1.0 out of 5 stars A poorly told story indeed, Dec 26 2003

By

Scott in Vermont (Vermont USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Storyville (Paperback)

I'm not much for bodice-rippers, but an interest in jazz history and the photography of E.J. Bellocq lead me to pick this one up. The writing is decent enough, but the main problem here is the plot. In short, it's a disaster. As a previous reviewer said, the thing seems to rush to its ending -- almost as if the author wanted to get it over and be done with it. My main reason for writing this review is to direct readers to Al Rose' wonderful non-fiction work of the same title. Having read that book first, it was obvious that Ms. Battle had gotten much of her material from that work (incidentally, the movie 'Babyface,' which was Brook Shield's film debut, was also derived from from a true life story in that book). I was glad to discover that the late Al Rose' Storyville is now back in print. It contains a lot of first-person interviews from prostitutes, pimps and johns who frequented Storyville in its hey day, and I couldn't put it down. So skip the bodice-ripper and read the true story of Storyville. You won't be disappointed. Also, if anyone reading this hasn't seen E.J. Bellocq's haunting photographs of Storyville prostitutes, they're an absolute 'must see.'

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1.0 out of 5 stars An OK book.., Dec 5 2003

By

Tonya Speelman "Hoarder of books" (Goldendale WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Storyville (Paperback)

Too much about prostitutes and in that respect VERY BLAH! Tried to make it a love story but that bombed in my opinion! Maybe it is because I have never visited down there that I just don't understand that lifestyle. I am not sure. All I know is I don't enjoy reading about prostitutes throughout the whole book!

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars VERY New Orleans
I LOVED this book! I read it before I lived in New Orleans, and I still think of it now that I live here, whenever I pass the area that was once Storyville. Read more

Published on April 29 2003

1.0 out of 5 stars Big Let-Down
This is one of those romanticized novels with little weight and, in my opinion, not much to recommend it. I never finished it.

Published on Dec 27 2002 by Joseph L Burke