Title: The Madam
Author: Julianna Baggott
Pages: 296
Publisher: Atria Books
Copyright: 2003
Format: Hardback
Rating: 
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I know. The cover + the title = questionable. But this book wasn’t like that. Yes, the protagonist eventually ran a whore house. But the book is about her struggle, not the activities of the whore house. I read this book for my new book club.
Alma is married and has three children. She is suffocating from her daily life, from her children’s needs, from her work in a loud and dusty hosiery factory in a loud and dusty mining town, and from poverty. When her husband Henry learns that there are abandoned trunks full of valuables for sale at a reasonable price in Florida, they decide to take a trip. That trip is the catalyst for change in almost all aspects of Alma’s life.
I liked this book. Well, more specifically, I liked the writing. It’s just so evocative of time and weather and place and change. Here’s a sample from the beginning of the book:
But Alma can feel things shifting. She knows nothing of atoms. She can’t. She’s a woman in a hosiery factor in Marrowtown, West Virgina. It’s 1924, nearly summer. Atoms are still the matter of physicist’s dreams, dim stars with the skies just beginning to ink. But if she did know of atoms, she would say she could feel the restlessness of them, like schoolchildren at the end of a long spring day. She’s aware of the vibration of everything – not just the factory’s thrumming hive, but in some minute invisibility all around her, inside of herself, a small electric charge.
In addition to excellent writing, the story was interesting. However, about halfway through, it kind of lost me. It took some unexpected turns, and left me a little unsatisfied. The characters are so good. At least, their potential is good. There’s Delphine, the opium-addicted whore. There’s Roxy, the homeless lesbian. There’s Sister Margaret, the good-hearted and practical nun. And there’s Alma herself. But each of these characters, for me, failed to live up to her potential. In fact, I felt like this whole book failed to live up to its potential.
While I can’t wholeheartedly love this book, I am curious as to Baggott’s other, more critically acclaimed works. Perhaps I’ll read one of those someday.
The Madam, by Julianna Baggott
Buy The Madam at Powell’s Books or Amazon.com
{ 3 comments }
He he, that cover is funny. I’m interesting in finding out what the rest of your book club thought about the book. Do you think it would make for a good discussion?
Tricia – I sadly missed my book club’s discussion on this book. Looking now at their responses to it on goodreads, it appears that my take was the general take. The writing is beautiful, but the plot and characters seriously suffered. While good writing is appreciated, I usually find that good plots make for better book club discussions.
I read this book before I started keeping a book blog. I remember being mostly disappointed with it. I’d been interested because the author used family history as the basis, but I, too, thought it failed to live up to its potential. In fact, all that I really remember about it is that it’s about a woman who finds herself running whorehouse and that I thought it was just okay.
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