Customer Reviews

Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ignore the book's subtitle, cover and back cover copy. Madam Millie is not about bordellos or lurid sex detail. It's about a tough, wise, loveable woman. There are a few funny incidents -- as when a cat attacks a delicate portion of a bishop's anatomy -- but today they seem rather tame.
Millie's long life was never ordinary. Orphaned at a young age, she was saved from juvenile justice by Harry S. Truman, then a Kansas City judge. When her sister Florence was diagnosed with tuberculosis, Millie accompanied her to Deming, New Mexico, where she worked as a Harvey Girl at the train station.
Millie entered her new profession to pay her sister's medical bills. And the rest is, literally, history.
Readers will appreciate Madam Millie on two levels: as the biography of a legend and as a social history of women, work and early life in the southwest. Millie entered the business to pay medical bills for her sister. In one night, she would earn more -- and have a pleasanter life -- than she would in the other occupations open to women at the time.
Millie was first and foremost a businesswoman. She built her success not on her looks but on her charisma, executive skills and ability to read people. It was no accident that her houses attracted high-powered clients. She was their equal.
Millie managed bordellos but she also bought and sold real estate. If she had been born forty years later, she would be a player in business or politics -- a very different but equally challenging game.
Readers can debate the morality -- and inevitabilty -- of Millie's "business." Millie herself believed there would always be a need, whether legally met or not. As Millie acknowledged, in the end what she had to sell soon became available for free, thanks to birth control and a changing society.
Millie ran clean houses, with no drugs and no disease, and her contributions to the community must have set a record. There were no rescue agencies back then. She *was* the Red Cross. Her last houses on Hudson Street -- site of the current Silver City post offices -- closed in 1968.
Madam Millie is fast-paced and easy to read. We get a sense of her wit and style, though not a great deal of her thought processes. Then again, Madam Millie does not come across as an introspective gal. She's all action. The pictures help us see history: the "girls" come across as more humorous than provocative.
Give this book to your favorite Silver City newcomer. Buying stamps and mailing a letter will take on a whole new meaning after they read Madam Millie.

I found the story of Madam Millie very fascinating and funny at times. I've lived in Silver City for two years and its interesting to read about the town in its heyday. Especially now that I know that the post office is where her infamous whorehouse once sat.
The story is told as if Millie was still alive and Max Evans makes her real and not just some unreachable figure in Silver's past. What I enjoyed most was learning about the people who would visit her brothels and I rolled on the floor with laughter at the story of the Mormon bishop.
I recommend this book to anyone, especially if you live in or near Silver City, because most of the places she talks about still exisit and it makes you think twice about downtown Silver City.

Absolutely great book if you want to read about one of the truly fantastic madams of the recent period, read this! She crowded more 'living' into her life than most people do in 6 lifetimes. She had friends in all the right places, and knew everyone. On her own from the age of 14, she was a quick learner and knew all the 'tricks'. In fact, as she put it, "We turned a good trick". Had houses from Alaska to the bottom of New Mexico. Top notch- 5 stars.

This book is very well written. It tells the true story life of a famous New Mexico Madam who lived 87 years of her life to its fullest with a lot of tears of joy and sadness. The story would make a terrific movie.

It is a daring and courageous thing for a university press to produce a book like MADAME MILLIE -- a no-holds barred story of a New Mexico bordello madame -- but any book by that true Westerner and Western writer of proven genius, Max Evans (author of THE ROUNDERS, HI-LO COUNTRY, BLUEFEATHER FELLINI) is a feather in the camp of any publisher. MADAME MILLIE is a perfect wedding of writer-publisher and the book is a masterpiece of truth-telling, told with a novelist's eye for detail and clear-headed dialogue.

Prostitution is the context for this book describing the economy, politics, history and geography of New Mexico - or visa versa. Pages burn with descriptions of Millie's businesses and clients and some will be uncomfortable with the heat. While it was not the author's intent, it may change some readers' views of prostitution. Others, closer to home, will cringe reading about her political maneuvers. Afterall, some who did business with Millie are still alive. The raw tactics of overcoming business obstacles haven't changed much. This makes the read both facinating and disquieting.

Millie's story is told with obvious affection and respect by author Max Evans. She came to New Mexico in the twenties as an orphan at age 14 with a sickly older sister and a strong will. With little else she built a veritable empire. Her business acumen, generousity and vibrant spirit touched places and people throughout, and well beyond, the state. What a great Lady, in the finest sense of the word.

I met Millie once when I was a youngster, this book was of immense interest to me.
This is a very good story and it is hilarious at times.
Other times it is heart wrenching. Kind of like life.
My only criticism is that the biographer was weak in the delivery of the story.
Nevertheless, I express thanks to Mr. Evans his perseverance in writing this book. I am certain it was not an effortless undertaking.

This book is one that I will save as a gem between gems on my bookshelf.

Being from Silver City I knew Police chief Tommy Ryan and the Santa Rita pit and so many other details in the book so it read like old home week. Mildred was one smart woman who scratched out a living any way she could.There was a bronze lamp in that cathouse that claimed that there you'd get enough sport to last you the whole year.

This is an amazing story of perseverance and survival. I grew up during the 1960's in New Mexico so this book was an extremely interesting and a fun-fun-fun read. I'm appreciative that author Max Evans recorded this golden nugget of history.

This book is great! I could hardly put it down! The spunk this "Millie" had is fantastic and the stories are so real, knowing what the real life of a prostitute is like! I've become a fan of Max Evans as an author, and intend to read many more of his books. He really knows how to tell things in an interesting manner. However, this book may not be for the faint of heart or the puritans! I just can't say enough about how much I enjoyed reading this book! It's a Keeper!