This book had all the makings of a true page turner - a madam, her girls, political corruption, a hot steamy setting and more, it just didn't read like a page turner. Yes, there were parts that held me captive on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened, but then there were vast sections that were about as interesting to read as the telephone book.

Gleaned from her own taped memoirs and other previously written articles as well as interviews with friends and accquaintences the professional life of Norma Wallace, New Orlean's last madam, seemed rather lack luster. With so much raw material, what went wrong? Oddly the later parts of the book, after Ms. Wallace's retirement from the business seemed to hold much more interest for me than those dealing with her working days.

From a historical perspective I think this was a good read as Ms. Wallace's life in the French Quarter spanned quite a long period of time. This is not the stuff you learn about in Louisiana history. I learned alot more about our past mayors from this book than I ever did in a history class. I particularly liked that addresses of the houses where she was a "landlady" were given. I will definately spend some afternoon in the near future scouring the French Quarter for these addresses.

All in all it was a fairly decent book. I think it will hold particular interest for New Orleaneans like myself, but would not be as appealing to the rest of the general popluation.

This is a fascinating life story involving the rags to riches tale of Norma Wallace. The story contains countless episodes of intrigue and salacious details of the Brothel business that make for a very entertaining read. There are other passages that get quite bogged down in detail regarding ancillary characters that don't add much to the narrative flow. Overall Norma Wallace is portrayed very sympathetically and sounds like someone who would be fabulous to have a few drinks with and listen to. However she ends very badly as a victim of her own vanity and insecurity.
The descriptions of the French Quarter during the 1st half of the 20th century are great reading for lovers of New Orleans. I'll be sure to walk down Conti St. on my next visit and see if I can find some of the places described in this book.

New Orleans is one of the most visited cities in the USA. Even the casual visitor has been told the stories of prostitution and corruption in the majestic French Quarter. The story of Norma Wallace based in part on her audio taped autobiogaphy gives the present day reader the best look at what this life was really like. The writer is convincing, by naming names and places, that the world's oldest profession was almost respectible, even in the last half of the 20th century. The research done to write this book is amazing. The opinion you form of Norma, by the end of the book,is surprising. A good book and a must if you are familiar with New Orleans

Christine Wallace has written a perceptive, if rather hostile, book about Germaine Greer. (We should note that Greer opposed Wallace's writing this book.) She contends that Greer's life and work are so entwined that they demand a biography and review combined, and this she tries to provide.

For Greer, education was always the way forward. She had a drive to succeed through scholarship and writing. These achievements moved her on throughout her life, first from her Catholic upbringing, then from Sydney's self-indulgent Bohemia.

One of the two key influences on her intellectual development was the great literary critic Frank Leavis, passionately engaged with great literature, morally serious and contemptuous of commercial values. The other influence was the gloomy, Bohemian anarchism of the Australian philosopher John Anderson.

So academe and Bohemia have warred within Greer. Academe led to her life as a scholar and a literary and cultural critic. But the downside of Leavisism was its cultural warring, that ends up attacking ordinary people and 'suburban values', in unbalanced displays of self-hatred.

Bohemia led to the self-obsessed Byronism of her celebrity role, in which she claimed that sexual freedom was the key to, and criterion of, all other freedoms and helped to promote the modern commercial, sex-saturated culture, with its commodification of fetishes. Reaction easily co-opted this radical individualism and sexual freedom.

Greer united the best and worst of both traditions and their contradictions, generating both her dazzling dialectics and her wild excesses. Wallace concludes that Greer has never been tamed. But although she has rejected professional, urban and family life, what does she have to show for it? She leads a solitary, rural life, punctuated by dramatic incidents and epigrammatic performances on late night TV chat shows. She has written a series of books, brilliant in patches but basically incoherent and unsatisfying. She seems more like a performing scandaleuse than a free spirit.

Christine Wallace's writing made me a proud member of the anonymous society. Teh above statement encompasses, Wallace's attempt at writing Greer's biography. The title and the subject matter remain to be the only points of interest in the book. Based upon Ms. Wallace's personal opinions, perceptions and most importantly judgements, the book fails to deliver what it claims (A book that Greer tried to stop from publishing). Her assessment of Greer barely attempts to penetrate the epidermis of the woman who caused a stir and caused the Western society to "smell the coffee" by writing "The Female Eunuch". Wallace claims that Greer was never a feminist - Eunuch was an accident she wrote. It sounds like a personal opinion, which brings about a debate, but nevertheless, it is not a biography. Weak bibliography, jumpy and choppy paragraphs and unsupported claims make this an insult to all biographers of modern times. This is truly a book that would scare any celebrity merely because it doesn't reveal anything, yet it claims so much. A personal advise for Christine Wallace: Your talents would be better suited to a publication like the National Enquirer or the Globe.