Loading....
Madam is the biography of Polly Adler (1900- 1962), the most infamous and influential madam in Jazz Age New York.
More than a biography, this is a colorful and unusual history of Jewish life told through the perspective of a “good Jewish girl” from a Russian shtetl who immigrated to Brooklyn and rose to become “the Female Al Capone” and one of the most renowned Jewish-American women in the 20th century.
The New York Times Book Review praised Madam as a “fast-paced tale of radical, willful transformation,” and “a breathless tale told through extraordinary research.”
Debby Applegate’s first book won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for biography and she spent the next 13 years working on Madam.
"A biography that is also a story of America bursting into the modern age, with new roles for women, new rules for couples, and parties that flowed into rooms down the hall.”
--CBS Sunday Morning
“Pearl to Polly, shtetl child to savvy New Yorker, Brooklyn corset factory girl to Manhattan’s most notorious brothel owner: Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Debby Applegate, tells a fast-paced tale of radical, willful transformation. . .Replete with accounts of Polly’s many court battles, newspaper headlines, mobster dealings and society gossip, Madam is a breathless tale told through extraordinary research.”
--The New York Times
The Arts + Ideas Book of the Month is a collection of books with intriguing topics, characters, and stories for book-club-style conversations that will allow the community to engage personally with some of this season’s most exciting authors. Have questions? Feel free to reach out for more information!
Hunter Thomas Director, Arts + Ideas HThomas@UJFT.org 757-965-6137
Thank You!
We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 12:00pm!
You will also receive a confirmation email shortly.
If you have unsubscribed from our emails, you will NOT receive the confirmation email.
If you have unsubscribed from our emails and would like to resubscribe, please email us here.