
Podcast: Ep379: The Life of a Jazz Age Madam
17. Dezember 2021
Autor(en): The New York Times
Podcast: The Book Review
1 / 1The Life of a Jazz Age Madam
- 1. The Life of a Jazz Age Madam
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In 2007, Debby Applegate won a Pulitzer Prize for âThe Most Famous Man in America,â her biography of the 19th-century preacher and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. Applegateâs new book, âMadam,â is another biography, of a very different subject: Polly Adler, who ran a brothel and had many famous friends during the Jazz Age in New York City. On this weekâs podcast, Applegate describes the challenges of running a business in the underworld. âYou have to depend on your reputation,â Applegate says. âYou canât advertise, you canât sell your product in a normal market square. So you have to cultivate your own kind of word of mouth and your own kind of notoriety. Polly worked out of small but luxurious apartments that were hidden away and constantly moving, so she could stay one step ahead of the cops or other crooks. What Polly did was use that small town but big city of Manhattan, which was really thriving in those years between World War I and World War II, and she became a critical player â a âbig shot,â as the gossip columnists called her.â Matthew Pearl visits the podcast to discuss his new book, âThe Taking of Jemima Boone,â about the kidnapping of Daniel Booneâs daughter in 1776. Pearl is well known as a novelist, and he says that this work of nonfiction has many of the elements he looks for in any good story. âJemima is such a strong and incredible character to work with,â he says. She was one of the Boonesâ 10 children, though ânot all of them survived into childhood or adulthood, and Jemima was one who was very close with her father, in particular, and she had really her fatherâs spirit of persistence and independence.â Also on this weekâs episode, Elizabeth Harris has news from the publishing world, and Dwight Garner and Jennifer Szalai talk about books theyâve recently reviewed. Pamela Paul is the host. Here are the books discussed by The Timesâs critics this week: âThe Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktailsâ âAccidental Godsâ by Anna Della Subin We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.
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The New York Times
The world's top authors and critics join host Gilbert Cruz and editors at The New York Times Book Review to talk about the week's top books, what we're reading and what's going on in the literary world. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Also, for more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.