My Notorious Life - Hardcover

Manning, Kate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1451698062 ISBN 13: 9781451698060

Publisher: Scribner, 2013

Synopsis

“Exquisitely written and richly detailed, My Notorious Life is a marvel. Kate Manning’s rags-to-riches Dickensian saga brings to vivid life the world of nineteenth-century New York City, in all its pitiful squalor and glittering opulence. I loved this novel.” —Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train

A brilliant rendering of a scandalous historical figure, Kate Manning’s My Notorious Life is an ambitious, thrilling novel introducing Axie Muldoon, a fiery heroine for the ages. Axie’s story begins on the streets of 1860s New York. The impoverished child of Irish immigrants, she grows up to become one of the wealthiest and most controversial women of her day.

In vivid prose, Axie recounts how she is forcibly separated from her mother and siblings, apprenticed to a doctor, and how she and her husband parlay the sale of a few bottles of “Lunar Tablets for Female Complaint” into a thriving midwifery business. Flouting convention and defying the law in the name of women’s reproductive rights, Axie rises from grim tenement rooms to the splendor of a mansion on Fifth Avenue, amassing wealth while learning over and over never to trust a man who says “trust me.”

When her services attract outraged headlines, Axie finds herself on a collision course with a crusading official—Anthony Comstock, founder of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. It will take all of Axie’s cunning and power to outwit him in the fight to preserve her freedom and everything she holds dear.

Inspired by the true history of an infamous female physician who was once called “the Wickedest Woman in New York,” My Notorious Life is a mystery, a family saga, a love story, and an exquisitely detailed portrait of nineteenth-century America. Axie Muldoon’s inimitable voice brings the past alive, and her story haunts and enlightens the present.

About this title

Review

"Racing along the back alleys and posh avenues of Manhattan... Axie's fiery story [keeps] burning right to the end."--Ron Charles "The Washington Post "

"Manning has created an unforgettable character driven by determination and conscience."--Donna Marchetti "Cleveland Plain Dealer "

"Not just a splendidly page-turning story of an angry orphan clawing her way up in the world, but a gripping docu-drama about women's business (in several senses) in nineteenth-century America. My Notorious Life gives midwifery its full dues: the glories and the miseries, the feminism and the money, the literally bloody ethical dilemmas. Unflinchingly memorable."--Emma Donoghue, author of Room

Kate Manning has taken a little known nugget of history and spun it into a remarkable novel that is mesmerizing and resonant. Her New York City of the late nineteenth century is passionately evoked, and Axie Muldoon is as fierce and alive a character as I have read in recent fiction. In its exploration of a subject no less pressing now than it was over a hundred years ago, My Notorious Life is an essential novel for our time."--Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin

"My Notorious Life is wonderful fun. The wit and verve of its unsinkable heroine make this novel a delight to read, even in its most harrowing passages. Beyond that, it's a book that matters--now more than ever. Faithfully true to the time of its setting, it is also extremely relevant to ours."--Madison Smartt Bell, author of The Color of Night

"My Notorious Life is a must read for anyone who likes their novels smart, entertaining and provocative. Axie Muldoon's lively, remarkable story begins with an unexpected death and an identity switch and never lets up until the end. Masterful."--Whitney Otto, author of Eight Girls Taking Pictures

Book Description

A stunning tale of sex, freedom, family and the many faces of love, set in nineteenth-century New York

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1451698062
• ISBN 13: 9781451698060
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 438