Non-fiction review: Wicked Women: Notorious, Mischievous, and Wayward Ladies from the Old West

 

Title: Wicked Women: Notorious, Mischievous, and Wayward Ladies from the Old West

Author: Chris Enss

Publisher: TwoDot (Rowman & Littlefield), 2015. 209 pages.

Source:  I purchased this book at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, CA.

Publisher's Blurb:

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West's most egregiously badly behaved female outlaws, gamblers, soiled doves, and other wicked women by award-winning Western history author Chris Enss offers a glimpse into Western Women's experience that's less sunbonnets and more six-shooters. During the late nineteenth century, while men were settling the new frontier and rushing off to the latest boom towns, women of easy virtue found wicked lives west of the Mississippi when they followed fortune hunters seeking gold and land in an unsettled territory. Prostitutes and female gamblers hoped to capitalize on the vices of the intrepid pioneers. Pulling together stories of ladies caught in the acts of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, it will include famous names like Belle Starr and Big Nose Kate, as well as lesser known characters." 

My Review:

I'm always hunting up books like this in the little museums and park bookstores around the West. I like to get insights into what the time and place was really like (as opposed to the permanent imprint left on my impressionable adolescent brain by Louis L'Amour) by reading journals and other accounts of real lives of the times. In this book, Chris Enss uses a touch of imagination at the beginnings of most of the biographies, in an effort to paint the picture more clearly. She backs up the brief scenes with plenty of research, however, so I forgive her the literary license. 

The women profiled are mostly prostitutes, so this is definitely not a book for young readers. Enss uses the expression from the period, and generally refers to the women as "soiled doves," though she is clear about what they are doing. I'm not sure how I feel about that euphemism; it does seem to contain a number of judgements, though for the most part there is no moral overlay on the book. In any case, the women's lives are interesting, and the research into the conditions that drove, or led, them into prostitution, gambling, and in a few cases outright outlawry are telling. Far too many of these stories contain the line "unable to find any other way to support herself..." That is an indictment of society that may still be too true today for some.

What I found most interesting were not the women who regretted their careers, but the ones who went into it with a clear and cold business sense. Many of the women portrayed were madams, and many made a lot of money running multiple brothels--maybe the one business women were allowed to run in the 19th Century, and the success many of them made of it suggests that they would have done even better if allowed to run legitimate businesses. Sadly, many of the women lost everything in the end, usually because they lost their hearts to the kind of men who frequented brothels and gambling dens. It did get painful to read that, time after time. The main variation was that they lost everything because the law shut them down, penalizing the women and ignoring the men who frequented the "bawdy houses."

In the end, the portraits felt a little too superficial, but I got a feel for their lives, and the bibliography provides lots of leads for further reading. I'd call it a decently done book of its sort.

My Recommendation:

Interesting reading for anyone interested in the history of women in the settlement of the US west. It makes a good companion to the women's diaries and letters (usually from more typical women) of the westward expansion that I have read in other sources.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased a copy of Wicked Women with my own money and of my own volition, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

Middle Grade Monday: Withering-by-Sea, by Judith Rossell

Title: Withering-by-Sea
Author: Judith Rossell
Publisher: ABC Books, 2014. US edition by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016. 261 pages.
Source: Library

Publisher's Blurb:
High on a cliff above the gloomy coastal town of Withering-by-Sea stands the Hotel Majestic. Inside the walls of the damp, dull hotel, eleven-year-old orphan Stella Montgomery leads a miserable life with her three dreadful Aunts. But one night, Stella sees something she shouldn't have... Something that will set in motion and adventure more terrifying and more wonderful than she could ever have hoped for... 

My Review:
I believe I picked up this one on a recommendation from the Goodreads Great Middle Grade Reads group. I'm glad I did. The book is a sort of semi-humorous gothic mystery for kids. Which might not sound super appealing, but the book is both funny and scary (mostly in the "oh no! She's in trouble again" way), and certainly grabbed me and pulled me right along.

Stella is a Victorian child, being raised by delightfully awful Aunts, who are clearly trying to mold her into something she is not (a mindless little 'perfect child'). But she has an imagination, curiosity, and a nose for trouble, as well as maybe a little something else that she doesn't know about yet. She follows her nose into a fair bit of trouble, with close escapes, two kidnappings, a couple of disguises, and the acquisition of a few friends who help her triumph in the end.

There is nothing terribly deep about the book; this isn't an "issues" book. It's just a delightful romp through a not-quite-real world with a sea-side resort and a carnival on a pier. It is also almost certainly the start of something glorious, as a few questions are left unresolved at the end. I did like that the author didn't feel the need to follow Stella all the way back to her aunts; it is enough to know that she is brave enough to go back and face them after being out all night, and that she is determined to learn more about who she really is--a great mystery that the reader can guess at, but will have to wait for another book to have fully resolved.

My Recommendation:
If you or your child are too easily frightened by somewhat spooky magical things, stay away. But if you like a touch of the horrible with a larger touch of humor and loyal friends, dive right in. It's a fast and easy read, but a lot of fun for anyone over the age of maybe 9 (because of the scary bits).

FTC Disclosure: I checked Withering-by-Sea out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

Flash Fiction Friday

I was a little late getting started on this, being still in mental vacation mode. But thanks to Jemima Pett, who has created a new writing prompts page, I pulled out a title and found a story. At just under 850 words, it's a quick Friday Distraction.

The Wrong Bird

It should have been an eagle, of course. Every kingdom put an eagle on their war-banners, unless they used a lion. But this was definitely a bird, so it had to be an eagle. It just didn’t look much like one.

The royal banner-maker wasn’t very good at birds. The result was an error the kingdom had to live with, the king declared. He didn’t want to spend the money to have a new banner designed.

“But what is it?” asked the prince, who was still too young to be polite and evasive. “We can’t have a bird on our banners and not even know what it is! It would be rude!”

King Kerwin exchanged glances with his royal advisors. “Does it matter?” he began to ask, and the chancellor of the exchequer nodded sagely.

The head of the army broke in. “The boy’s right. I’m sure it’s a nice bird,” he added, for Lord Wilfram had been well brought-up, and the banner maker might be somewhere about. “But we really must know what it is.”

“It looks fierce enough,” ventured the rather timid Lord Chuffle, master of the royal bedchamber. “That beak looks sharp, at any rate.”

“Nonsense!” roared Lord Gryphon, who wasn’t at all timid. “Why, it might not even be a bird of prey. Those feet aren’t exactly talons.” They all, even Chuffle, had to agree about the feet. And it would never do to have anything but a bird of prey on the banner. A war-banner, even of a very small and new kingdom, had to display something fierce, real or imagined. The color of the feet suggested this might be imagined, but it wasn’t fierce enough.

“What does the banner maker say it is?” Prince Janson asked in his direct way.

The lords all looked at each other.

“I, er, I’m sure I don’t know,” admitted King Kerwin. “Chuffle, send and find out at once.” Chuffle scuttled off.

It was an unusually practical move for the king, but was, alas, to no avail. The lords all stood around staring at the banner until Chuffle returned, puffing from a race all over the castle in search of the banner maker.

“My lord! Sire!” he panted. “The man is nowhere to be found!”

Men began to swarm in all directions, determined to flush out the miserable tailor, whom they now began to suspect of worse things than ornithological ignorance. In a moment, Prince Janson was left alone with the banner.

The boy studied it, first from a distance and then up close. Then he took the bit of fabric, hid it under his tunic, and slipped off around the corner and down an empty hall.

In the way of boys, Janson had long since found routes around the castle that avoided all the adults, especially the noble ones. In five minutes, he had made his way, unobserved, to the royal library.

Prying open the heavy oak door, he slipped inside, and pulled the door shut behind him. No one would interrupt him there, since no one else seemed to use the library.

He had a well-developed, and so far justified, belief that anything he wanted to know could be found in the library. This was largely the result of his father’s frequent demands that he “work it out for himself,” uttered when the king tired of the boy’s eternal “why, Papa?” That order, combined with a tendency on the part of his tutor to send him to the library to read on things—the tutor liked to sneak off with the queen’s chambermaid—meant that Janson knew most of the books in the library. He was probably the only one.

He turned to consider the long shelves of books. Where would he find the answer? There. The book he wanted was in the third row on the left. Janson remembered the big, beautiful books with drawings of every animal in the kingdom and beyond. Every bird, too, which was more to the point just then.

He would find their battle emblem in the section on sea birds, Janson thought. Those feet looked like water, however much some wanted to pretend they were talons, and despite Lord Chuffle’s claims about the fierceness of the beak, Janson thought it looked like some sort of duck. Something that ate fish whole, rather than tearing gobbets of flesh with a strong, hooked beak.

Janson leafed through the book. There it was, as he’d thought, right next to the albatross. Too bad the banner maker hadn’t slipped and made one of them, Janson thought. But there was no denying those feet, especially with the distinctly blue cast of the thread used to embroider them.

He pulled out the banner and compared it with the book, just to be sure, but there was really no doubt. No wonder the banner maker had disappeared. Janson hoped he had left with the trader caravan that morning, because Papa was going to be furious. And with good reason.

What kingdom could thrive with a blue-footed booby on its war banner?

 ###

I don't have any photos of the blue-footed booby, but I'll link you to one on Photoseek, the fantastic photo site of Photographer Tom Dempsey (and I'll encourage you to look around there, because he has hundreds of fantastic photos for sale).

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2016
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!