Annie Chambers

Lenore Carrol's fictional autobiography of ninteenth century Kansas City Madam Annie Chambers traces her life from the 1850's through her death in the 1920's. A blind charity case, having given up her disorderly house to a local mission, Annie recounts from her rocking chair the wide open days of Kansas City. A heartfelt look at one infamous woman. The book is flavored with well researched local history combined with what seems a true social sense of the time. Annie matter of factly describes the day to day existence for a woman in "the life". Less prosaic episodes describe Annie's personal erotic odyssey. Not for Senator Helms, more for Newt. Lenore Caroll fills the pages with a quick, seemingly transparent style that hypnotically evokes the memories of a life. She is a great writer, and this is a great book. Hopefully "Annie" will be back in print soon.