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The Last Madam: a Life in the New Orleans Underworld by Christine Waltz is an intriguing portrayal of the adolescence and rise to fame of Norma Wallace, a woman considered to be one of New Orleans’ last true Madams. Norma, who began working the streets at the age of 15, first aligned herself with Bertha Anderson, one of Storyville’s famed women, in the 1920s when she was 16. She stayed with Anderson for two years, and by the time she turned 18, Norma had determined she would become a landlady herself, instead of merely a streetwalker; Norma eventually became the proprietor and host of a famous brothel on Conti Street.

The biography swirls readers through the juice joints and dance clubs of the Tango Belt and the Vieux Carré, or French Quarter, and describes the many legislative attempts that dared to clench a hand upon the tolerated gambling and prostitution and speakeasies that had become the heart of New Orleans’ entertainment.

Norma, who ran her own house and looked after her girls protectively, was known to be strict but caring. She didn’t allow drugs or pimps, and she taught the women to be as safe and clean as possible, while still maintaining her lucrative business and performing a waltzing game with various law enforcement to maintain her status over the several decades that she ran her business.

The tangle of her marriages and affairs that are depicted in the book include the likes of bootlegger Andy Wallace, world bantam-weight boxing champion Pete Herman, one of Al Capone’s henchmen Sam Hunt, and the young stud Wayne Bernard, whom Norma met and first seduced when she was 53 years old. The love affair with the young man eventually destroyed Norma, as she grew older and was unable to hold on to his attentions, and in the end, she ended her life in a brutal suicide. 

Waltz’s depictions and accounts provide wonderful insight into the lore of New Orleans’ Storyville fame. Through Waltz’s writing, the reader feels a true sense of Norma Wallace, her presence, her smarts, and her determination. The narration is easy to read and moves swiftly through some very definitive and historical aspects of the Crescent City. 

Una Vida is Dr. Nicolas Bazan’s first novel. Originally from Argentina, Dr. Bazan and his family now reside in New Orleans, where he has established and leads the Louisiana State University’s Neuroscience Center of Excellence. The novel is also set in New Orleans, and Dr. Bazan’s love for the city radiates out of each page, although his gushing love mostly gives the novel a wide-eyed touristy feel. And the lines between author and character-neuroscientist Alvaro Cruz often criss-cross and blur, so that the reader quickly understands that Dr. Bazan has fashioned the main character completely after himself.  While there seem to be some logistical inconsistencies and the plot too often and too easily falls into place as needed (showing the active movement of marionette strings by the book’s author), the story has some interesting suggestions and developments.

Cruz, like Bazan, is a neuroscientist; and like Bazan, Cruz witnessed, as a child, his aunt die from seizure, which ultimately starts him on his lifelong interest and research in the field. In the novel, Cruz wrestles with his disappointment at not being able to save his mother from Alzheimer’s and his guilt from not being with his mother at the time of her death. Cruz and his wife also deal with some issues of distance in their marriage that they ultimately overcome as Cruz puts into place the pieces to a particular puzzle involving the mysterious Una Vida, a jazz singer who Cruz determines is also suffering from Alzheimer’s.

In an effort to piece together the patch-work memories of Una Vida’s life, Cruz embarks on a journey that leads the reader through parts of New Orleans’ past, into an intimated love affair between Una Vida and Charlie Parker that produces a son who was given up, to a suggested familiarity of Una Vida with Billie Holiday, to Una Vida’s expertise as a clarinetist as well as a singer, and to Dr. Cruz’s (or really Dr. Bazan’s) love for jazz.

It would have been nice had Dr. Bazan provided even more insight into aspects of neuroscience and the brain, as it is clear through the storyline that he is quite passionate about the research. But the technical information seemed to maintain a more precursory depth. And while Dr. Bazan often breaks from the story to provide the reader with interesting side-notes and historical facts (including the brilliance of the Amish using car batteries as headlights, his knowledge of how to time the eating of muffalettas, tidbits about Louis Armstrong, and such), these seem mainly to be a means of showcasing the author’s knowledge of New Orleans and jazz and everything else, rather than as specific support for the story or plot. 

Dr. Bazan does offer an interesting passage, during which Dr. Cruz and his wife speak with a carriage driver named Handsome John who explains that the origin of the word Jazz comes from the prostitutes of Storyville being referred to as Jezebels. As Handsome John explains, the people of New Orleans used to refer to the music played in the bordellos of Storyville as Jezebel music, which eventually was shortened to Jez, and then modified to the present-day word, jazz. And when Dr. Bazan writes of the different jazz musicians that Cruz listens to at various points in the story, a lover of New Orleans can not help but wonder who these musicians might actually be.

As the advanced review copy indicates a copyright of 2009, Dr. Bazan has clearly chosen to represent New Orleans with little indication of the present day city after Hurricane Katrina, choosing not to indicate his characters’ experiences during the storm. Whether this was a purposeful omission in an effort to present a story as Dr. Bazan wanted, or whether it was a careless oversight by a first-time novelist who has deemed the factual details of his setting irrelevant, is unclear. But Dr. Bazan does present, through the characters, a thoughtful commentary about the relevance that people’s memories have for understanding themselves, their histories, and the people they come into contact with, and how these aspects often intertwine. The book is an easy read and has enough intrigue to keep a reader — who wishes a break from a 900-page book of world or regional history — going to the end.