The Story of Chicago MayThe Story of Chicago May
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Book, 2005
Current format, Book, 2005, , All copies in use.Book, 2005
Current format, Book, 2005, , All copies in use. Offered in 0 more formatsA portrait of the legendary woman outlaw describes her childhood in post-famine Ireland, work as a confidence trickster and grifter in America, love affair with a big-league criminal, imprisonment, and later years.
A portrait of the legendary woman outlaw describes her childhood in post-famine Ireland, work as a confidence trickster and grifter in America, love affair with a big-league criminal, successful robbery of Paris's American Express, imprisonment, and later years. By the author of Are You Somebody? 75,000 first printing.
Nuala O'Faolain, who achieved international fame with a remarkably candid appraisal of her own unorthodox life, here takes as her subject another daughter of Ireland - this one an outlaw and an unrepentant, independent woman.
The legend says that May was a tall girl with red-gold hair and big blue eyes, compellingly attractive to men. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from home in rural Ireland to America - first to Nebraska, then to Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair, and then on to the rip-roaring Tenderloin district of New York. In these new American cities, she worked as a confidence trickster, a thief, a showgirl, and, when times were bad, a prostitute, notorious as much for her violence as for her diamond rings.
But the woman the tabloids called "The Queen of the Underworld" met her nemesis in a handsome, dangerous Irish-American burglar named Eddie Guerin. She was with him in Paris in 1901 when his gang robbed the American Express office, and when the others were caught, she got away - with the money. But May went back to Paris to help him and was arrested and tried with him. She was sentenced to five years in jail in France. He was sent to Devil's Island for life.
Against all odds, Guerin managed to escape, and made his way back to London. But the passion they once shared turned quickly to hate. Shots were fired, May was tried for attempted murder, and sent to jail for ten years, sustained only be reading and by news of the Irish rebellion against British rule.
In 1917, May, now middle-aged, ailing, and penniless, was deported back to a New York she hardly recognized. She threw herself into a relationship with a cruel and destructive man, and for him returned to prostitution, and when he ran away, she chased him, a gun in her bag, until, derelict, she collapsed on the frozen streets of Detroit. It was there, while hospitalized, that she met the legendary police reformer August Vollmer, who urged her to write her autobiography as a path to redemption. May's memoirs bear witness to an outlaw experience of a kind rarely recorded by a woman. And even that was not the end of her story. The last experience of her life was love.
A unique, ruminative biography-a fascinating excursion into the American underworld at the dawn of the twentieth century, the life of an unrespectable Irish woman, and the hidden inner life of any woman who has tried to choose the unconventional path-by the author of the New York Times bestsellers Are You Somebody? and My Dream of You.
Nuala O'Faolain, the author of three consecutive New York Times bestsellers, has come upon a story that is not only a perfect match for her literary gifts but also takes her career in a surprising and rich new direction. This Irish woman writer who achieved international fame with a remarkably candid appraisal of her own unorthodox life has taken as her subject another daughter of Ireland-this one a notorious criminal and unrepentant, independent woman.
The legend says that May was a tall girl with glorious hair and big blue eyes, compellingly attractive to men. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from her home in rural Ireland to America-first Nebraska, then Chicago at the time of the World's Fair, and then on to New York. In these new American cities, she worked as a grifter, a confidence trickster, a prostitute, a sometime showgirl-earned her moniker and was hailed in tabloids as "Queen of the Underworld." And then she fell in love with a big-league criminal, followed him to Paris where they successfully robbed the American Express, then were apprehended, tried, and sent to prison. May survived prison, returned to America, and was reborn again and again-falling in love, lapsing back into the criminal life, flirting with legitimacy, writing her memoirs.
O'Faolain brings a sympathetic scrutiny to this extraordinary life story, reaching across the decades for points of connection and understanding. May was born in post-famine Ireland and died in the world of telephones, sportscars, and movies, in 1929, just before the stock-market crash. Is there a woman's experience they can share? An Irishwoman's experience? An outsider's? In the hands of one of our most astute and gifted memoirists, The Story of Chicago May is not only a tale well-told, but an inquiry into the telling of any life story. "There are pioneer journeys still to be made to the edge of the territory where we know how to be sympathetic," O'Faolain writes. "Shine the beam of attention out there and the dark recoils, and the frontier of human settlement moves forward."
A portrait of the legendary woman outlaw describes her childhood in post-famine Ireland, work as a confidence trickster and grifter in America, love affair with a big-league criminal, successful robbery of Paris's American Express, imprisonment, and later years. By the author of Are You Somebody? 75,000 first printing.
Nuala O'Faolain, who achieved international fame with a remarkably candid appraisal of her own unorthodox life, here takes as her subject another daughter of Ireland - this one an outlaw and an unrepentant, independent woman.
The legend says that May was a tall girl with red-gold hair and big blue eyes, compellingly attractive to men. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from home in rural Ireland to America - first to Nebraska, then to Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair, and then on to the rip-roaring Tenderloin district of New York. In these new American cities, she worked as a confidence trickster, a thief, a showgirl, and, when times were bad, a prostitute, notorious as much for her violence as for her diamond rings.
But the woman the tabloids called "The Queen of the Underworld" met her nemesis in a handsome, dangerous Irish-American burglar named Eddie Guerin. She was with him in Paris in 1901 when his gang robbed the American Express office, and when the others were caught, she got away - with the money. But May went back to Paris to help him and was arrested and tried with him. She was sentenced to five years in jail in France. He was sent to Devil's Island for life.
Against all odds, Guerin managed to escape, and made his way back to London. But the passion they once shared turned quickly to hate. Shots were fired, May was tried for attempted murder, and sent to jail for ten years, sustained only be reading and by news of the Irish rebellion against British rule.
In 1917, May, now middle-aged, ailing, and penniless, was deported back to a New York she hardly recognized. She threw herself into a relationship with a cruel and destructive man, and for him returned to prostitution, and when he ran away, she chased him, a gun in her bag, until, derelict, she collapsed on the frozen streets of Detroit. It was there, while hospitalized, that she met the legendary police reformer August Vollmer, who urged her to write her autobiography as a path to redemption. May's memoirs bear witness to an outlaw experience of a kind rarely recorded by a woman. And even that was not the end of her story. The last experience of her life was love.
A unique, ruminative biography-a fascinating excursion into the American underworld at the dawn of the twentieth century, the life of an unrespectable Irish woman, and the hidden inner life of any woman who has tried to choose the unconventional path-by the author of the New York Times bestsellers Are You Somebody? and My Dream of You.
Nuala O'Faolain, the author of three consecutive New York Times bestsellers, has come upon a story that is not only a perfect match for her literary gifts but also takes her career in a surprising and rich new direction. This Irish woman writer who achieved international fame with a remarkably candid appraisal of her own unorthodox life has taken as her subject another daughter of Ireland-this one a notorious criminal and unrepentant, independent woman.
The legend says that May was a tall girl with glorious hair and big blue eyes, compellingly attractive to men. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from her home in rural Ireland to America-first Nebraska, then Chicago at the time of the World's Fair, and then on to New York. In these new American cities, she worked as a grifter, a confidence trickster, a prostitute, a sometime showgirl-earned her moniker and was hailed in tabloids as "Queen of the Underworld." And then she fell in love with a big-league criminal, followed him to Paris where they successfully robbed the American Express, then were apprehended, tried, and sent to prison. May survived prison, returned to America, and was reborn again and again-falling in love, lapsing back into the criminal life, flirting with legitimacy, writing her memoirs.
O'Faolain brings a sympathetic scrutiny to this extraordinary life story, reaching across the decades for points of connection and understanding. May was born in post-famine Ireland and died in the world of telephones, sportscars, and movies, in 1929, just before the stock-market crash. Is there a woman's experience they can share? An Irishwoman's experience? An outsider's? In the hands of one of our most astute and gifted memoirists, The Story of Chicago May is not only a tale well-told, but an inquiry into the telling of any life story. "There are pioneer journeys still to be made to the edge of the territory where we know how to be sympathetic," O'Faolain writes. "Shine the beam of attention out there and the dark recoils, and the frontier of human settlement moves forward."
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- New York : Riverhead Books, 2005.
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