Customer Reviews

The Story of Chicago May

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

 

 

I heartily disagree with the previous review. Nuala O'Faolain is not seeking to merely recreate a biography in this book, but to urge readers to consider and ruminate upon the lives of women on the fringes of society, those millions who have led hard-scrabble, often brutal, lives throughout history. Her commentary seems, to me, not to be intrusive, but rather chronicles the connections made between the lives of the author and the subject. O'Faolain examines what might be universal themes, tying May to her family, to herself, to the reader, to the world. If one only wants to know about Chicago May, in the way we might examine her at a historical museum, this may not be the book for that person, but for those who wonder about how women fall into infamous and terrible situations, how history is rewritten, and what the realistic brutalities of early twentieth century life were--this book will give those readers a lot to think over.

I first heard of Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain when I picked up one of her books in the WH Smith at Heathrow as I ran to catch a flight back to the States. Sometimes we are drawn to certain authors in mysterious ways, as if the moments were meant to be. Thereafter, I was led to her two memoirs, breathtaking in their candor about moving through stages of life as a young Irish girl, a writer, and mature woman coming to terms with her past.

Knowing this writer's work, I didn't expect "The Story of Chicago May" to be a traditional biography, and it most certainly was not. May Duignan, born in post-famine Ireland, nicked her family's savings and ran away to America. There, she achieved legendary status as "Chicago May," working as a thief, outlaw, showgirl and prostitute.

What I find remarkable is how the writer weaves in her own process of discovery and personal experience in researching and writing the book. This approach won't work for all readers. Some prefer the conventional biography, but others will find this book refreshing. No matter how a writer strives for objectivity, biography writing will never truly elude the subjectivity of the writer's own experience. O'Faolain did it her way, though she painstakingly researched her elusive subject. She literally traced the steps of May through city after city on two different continents.

Years of May's life were spent in prisons on both sides of the Atlantic, but she managed to survive a life on the edge. Exhausted and sick at heart, she later met police reformer August Vollmer, who convinced her to write her autobiography as a way toward the light. O'Faolain refuses to sugarcoat the "Queen of Crook's" struggle to make ends meet, her experiences in and out of prison, or her poor choices in men, several notorious crooks in their own right.

"Hope kept me up," May wrote in her last, desperate note to Vollner before her death as "a tired old prostitute" in an unmarked grave in Philadelphia. But the book is not about a character who tried to save her own soul, whatever that may be interpreted to be. It ends with just as many questions about the seeming lack of meaning in May's life, yet assures us that even such a life as hers is worth examining: "Out there, people are waiting in the dark. Shine the beam of attention out there. The dark recoils."

I thought that this was a terrificly engaging book - read in two sittings. I very much liked Ms O'Faolain's two volumes of memoirs and this is a discernable and organic development of those investigations into life and love. This is a feminist, though unacademic, rewriting of history using impressively detailed research to recreate a picture of a largely unknown and 'unimportant' woman who was notorious as a streetwalker and bank-robber in her day. The combination of disparate sources - some less reliable than others - with the author's own ruminations on the mindset of her subject and the exile of her brother, makes this tale of two women layered and effortlessly enagaging. O'Faolain manages to be chatty while shrewly intelligent, approachable while uncompromising in her retelling of a forgotten history. Especially fascinating, and wholey unexpected, is May's encounter with Irish rebel Countess Markievicz in prison in England. O'Faolain manages to uncover a May who is both of her time and very modern; endlessly independent, often ruthless while also foolish and vulnerable in affairs of the heart. Chicago May's life was not heroic but it was filled with wildness and incident - across cities, continents and love-affairs. It would make a wonderful film though it might prove too strange to be believed. O'Faolain's decision to place herself in the narrative of its telling gives back to May some of the humanity denied to her in the yellow press of her time as well as offering the reader an always interesting insight into the mind of a strikingly intelligent, lucid and emotionally frank biographer.

Nuala O'Faolain does a remarkable job of humanizing a woman who otherwise would've remained just another fallen woman. This book is a captivating tale of survival, as well as a wonderful source of history. Anyone interested in what it was like to literally survive in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century will enjoy this tale. O'Faolain has a gentle, hypnotic writing style that really works here to evoke empathy for a woman who would otherwise be regarded as a common prostitute and petty thief. I loved it.

Like some of the previous reviewers, I was annoyed and bewildered after the initial reading of this book. Not because it wasn't well-written. It is. But the intermingling of the author's experiences and what she perceives May Duignan-Churchill to have felt/experienced was disorienting because I thought I was buying a biography of Chicago May. Most historical biographies are devoid of personal observations unless the author happened to be there along with his / her subject, which certainly wasn't true in Nuala O'Faolain's case.

It didn't take me long, however, to appreciate "The Story of Chicago May" for the unique literary effort that it is. O'Faolain is using May Duignan's story to depict one woman's struggle for independence AND show how similar struggles go on today despite increased earning power and educational opportunity. The author is an accomplished memoirist, and in this book she uses her brilliant capacity for insight to help make sense out of a cheerfully unrepentant female crook's career.

By the end of the second reading, I loved the book. That said, I understand why other readers who expected a no-nonsense historical biography, packed with facts and no fancy, were disappointed.

...and I love this book. WTS, I'm a 50-yr old, single woman. I read alot and i base my reviews on a few different things...you can check my other reviews to see. I would give this 5 Stars as to how much i personally loved it and related to it; i couldnt stop turning the pages, i think the author did an awesome job, and the story - to me - is VERY interesting.

I first read this author in "Are You Somebody?" which i absolutely loved. So i can feel her writing in this, and relate again - to both she, and Chicago May. When i began the book, i wasnt sure i was going to like a book which i felt was being written about someone else's autobiography. But it ended up being soooo much more than that. I just loved it!

I was struck with the skill and insight that the author demonstrates to draw us to this character. May becomes an examp-le of a human soul trapped by her environment and able to discard the yoke of fear that holds us in a dead-end life. She emerges as a soaring butterfly but is conscious of the difficulty of returning to "comfortable" life after living on the edge of society and flaunting it. The author carefully guides us thru the difficult years of incarceration and rejection, and is most skillful in identifying with the character in a way that makes the reader both despise and embrace her. Truly a fascinating story told in a manner which traps and holds the reader in timeless suspension.

I Loved this book. Chicago May was Annie Oakley, Ma Barker, Mae West, a more adventurous Annie Moore and Texas Guinan all rolled into one. No one could have written it better than Nuala. She brought May out from the shadows to have her story told. Incredible story and it's true.

The only thing I liked about this book is that it's written in Nuala's voice. Otherwise, it's not nearly up to the quality of her other work.

The biography was much as described in other reviews, where an interesting person was described both through the historical facts found and personal experiences of the author. I enjoyed O'Faolain's strategy and the story of May's life.