My Notorious Life: A Novel

Inspired by the true story of Ann Trow Lohman, also known as Madame Restell, this is a brilliant depiction of a woman who rises from grim beginnings to the splendor of New York City as a “female physician” for roughly forty years and becoming one of the most controversial women of her time.NYC, 1860. Axie Muldoon comes from an impoverished Irish family, after being separated from her family, she is provided a roof over her head in exchange for doing household chores. It is a house belonging to the doctor and his wife. She quickly advances from household chores to assisting in the clinic set at the house, arranging the vials, following formulas, using the pill press and the scales. She is told that a specific dosage brings relief, but a bit more might turn fatal. The library at the house serves as her schoolroom where she learns details of anatomy, of afflictions and the procedures to cure them. Soon after, at fourteen, she is apprenticed as assistant to midwife.Once married, her husband who is an aspiring journalist, always coming up with some catchy words and now using them to sell formulas concocted by Axie for women’s afflictions.The medicine can be delivered, but then she has women knocking at her door and asking for more than just medicine. The helplessness in women’s eyes pushes her to do something she didn’t want to do.Then, a knock on the door comes from a man of law.The character of Axie and her voice are vividly portrayed. We get to know her intimately. Her promise to her mother before she died to unite all siblings stays with her throughout her life. Through her work, when seeing women’s suffering and some dying while giving birth, it makes her not want to have her own child. Because of her controversial work, she attracts attention of officials who want to bring her down. But despite all that she is not capable to stay away from her true calling to help other women, and the security of having money. Being an orphan once makes her vow not to be one again, and with that comes ambition, strong will, and a strong woman who is determined to preserve her freedom.The time period of limited options for women, their downfall always seen as their fault, the helplessness and the desperation are all vibrantly presented.With brilliant storytelling, the hungry children of Irish immigrants wandering the streets of New York City catch your attention right away. A gentleman who offers them fresh bread and warm drink keeps you guessing his honest intentions. And the fate of the heroine keeps you engage to the very end.

Kate Manning scares me a little. She's either been possessed by the deceased woman she based her novel on or she's simply a genius who can inhabit her protagonist like Meryl Streep inhabits Margaret Thatcher or Julia Child. Since I am not an avid believer in the supernatural I am leaning towards the latter.Manning is an absolutely dazzling writer. Her prose is like perfectly aged wine -- the one no one wants to open, the dusty blood black one reserved for royals or Rockefellers. One sip and you're glassy eyed, you're disoriented and delirious and filled with her venom. She will cast a spell greater than The Brother's Grimm and you will wonder how she reanimates a world so drenched in sepia. How she breathes life into the 19th century -- reviving dead streets packed with sweating horses and fat brittle petticoats and trains crammed with orphans. If you love historical fiction that truly immerses you in another era you must read My Notorious Life. This book is not just Dickinson -- it's better than Dickens. Manning tramples literary giants like ants at a garden party. Her book is never a book -- It's soiled streets packed with smoke and grit, sweeping brocade and rattling carriages. It's crammed with birth and death, beggars and monsters and scoundrels and saints. This story is as luscious and drag you aboard real as James Cameron's Titanic. Every scene is gripping, every description flawless, and every character is so hauntingly vivid you could identify them in a line up or retrieve them in the turmoil of Times Square on the eve of December 31st.The novel is told in the first person by Axie Muldoon, Ms. Manning's audacious and altruistic heroine. You meet Axie as a dirt poor little girl struggling to survive on the streets of New York. She is the eldest of three children, the daughter of Irish immigrants who live in squalor and cannot adequately care for her or her siblings. Axie's father is gone, her mother is desperate and wondering if the only hope for her children is to relinquish them to a wealthy gentleman named Mr. Brace who says he can help find them foster homes. Axie's stubborn resolve and desire to stay with her siblings and her ailing mother is staggering and heartbreaking. Thankfully, Axie doesn't just accept her grim fate. She's intrepid and charming, sassy and smart. She swears and she sweats and rides on the tops of trains hurling through the countryside. Like Rose in the Titanic she won't be demure and delicate and idle on a salmon settee while the men engage in a battle of wits. Axie has other plans. As she matures we watch her become a successful female physician under an assumed name who was a highly controversial figure in her day. She is revered and reviled but she won't give into her enemies and you don't want her to.Axie will face countless obstacles on her fascinating journey but her indefatigable spirit will haunt you. It's a wildfire of vibrant vermilion in a cold cast-iron world.

I purchased this book after it was mentioned to me by a friend as possibly being of interest during my research into the Victorian Era, most notably relating towards childbirth. I was expecting fiction that was easy to read so perhaps the fault was in my expectations, but I really struggled to get into this book.It's written in the first person vernacular as a fictionalised memoir and, while I can completely understand why it was written that way, it did get quite irksome at times. The total lack of useful punctuation made following the dialogue really difficult and the spelling was creative, to say the least. It's also evident that the author was trying to channel some of the style of Arthur Conan Doyle in the way that you have two stories told entirely separately of each other and wound together at the end. Personally I don't think it was successful. If you're going to introduce The Enemy, do it consistently rather than as two peculiar throwaway chapters at what seemed to be random places in the book.Once you've got over the above and really sunk your teeth into the story, Axie (Anne) Muldoon is kind of a fascinating character. At times she's childish and selfish and untrusting, but she's also vulnerable and loving and her strength of character in relation to certain events is extraordinary. You find yourself liking her, despite all her faults. It's the same with Charlie - you want to like him but then he does something stupid or loutish and, as told through the distrustful eyes of Axie, you never know for sure until the end if he really is a good and decent guy. Everything she says about him is tainted with jealousy and distrust, despite his decent actions.I think in the characterisations is where you really see the strength of this book. Manning has done a really good job of capturing how different life was back then, particularly for women. Some of the details were shocking and gruesome and the level of poverty is almost incomprehensible through our modern eyes, yet it's really fascinating.The central theme of the book as I see it is the status of women in the Victorian era, how they were second class citizens and had no choice in what happened to them. Probably the most perfect example of this in the story is when Madame is being lambasted for providing women with the incentive to become promiscuous and she, quite rightly, retorts that simply providing contraception doesn't mean that all women will feel compelled to go and sleep with everything that moves. She's providing a service because of the base natures of men who can't and don't see why they should keep it in their pants. It's a really fascinating insight into the moral attitudes of the day. It seems women were assumed to be weak in all things and that the fault never lay with the men who abused that weakness.Again, I think that's a strength of this book. There are so many echoes of today's victim-blaming society in it. You read this horrible, graphic account of life in Victorian America and realise that actually not that much has changed in terms of attitudes. It can be quite chilling.It is a quintessential rags to riches story and Axie is such a brilliant and strong character that I personally found the ending to be a bit of a cop out. She's so fiery and determined and outraged over injustice that I felt a bit let down by the conclusion to the story.I'm not sure if I'd recommend this to others or not, but I did feel compelled to finish it.

I first became aware of author Kate Manning with her excellent 2002 novel Whitegirl, a fictional alternative story based on O.J. Simpson and his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. It has been too long since she has written anything new and I was delighted to see that she has now corrected that with this historical work. Again, the story is based on a real person - in this case New York midwife Ann Trow Lohman (1811-1879).Using the form of a newly 'discovered' diary, this book tells the life story of Axie (Annie) Muldoon, a street urchin who is taken from her poverty stricken and injured mother and put on an orphan train to Illinois along with her brother and sister. Against her wishes, the family are split up and, as nobody wants to keep the difficult and agressive Axie, she returns to New York along with Charlie - another unwanted child. Eventually, after many trials and tribulations, Axie is taken on as a maid to Mrs Evans and, later, as her assistant. For Mrs Evans is a midwife and there are many women in New York who have need of her services.Axie eventually becomes the Notorious Madame X - successful and wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, but her wealth is made from scandalous means. For many are threatened by her success and her means of obtaining it. While women fear childbirth and pregnancy, her services are seen as a danger to society. Having made it to the top, there are those that intend to bring her down. Can Axie save herself and, more than that, can she learn to trust those who want to help her?This is a really great read. It has a fantastic central character in the redoubtable Axie Muldoon and the author does a wonderful job of recreating both the era and the danger of childbirth at that time. You really wish Axie to succeed and will cheer her through her desperate childhood, her rise and possible fall. If you are looking for a book with substance, thrills and a really romping story, then look no further. I have to admit that I feared Ms Manning may had lost her touch after such a long time between books, but I am happy to say that is not the case. A brilliant story and it is well worth searching out her first novel too - perhaps it is too much to hope that it will be republished on kindle along with this new novel, which is sure to be a success? I hope so and, to the author, I trust she will not leave us waiting so long again for her next book.

At first I thought Madame X was going to turn out to be another sort of Madame. But this book is a fascinating study of the lives of women in America in the second half of the nineteenth century.We first meet Axie at 12 years of age: she is poor and deprived, with a strong sense of family loyalty, and above all very bright and resourceful. Axie and her younger siblings are sent away to a 'better life' in Illinois by a well-meaning reverend. The younger two are adopted but Axie returns to New York with another unwanted orphan, Charlie, where she finds her mother destitute and pregnant. It was the quite realistic fear of all women in those days that they would die in childbirth, and this indeed happened to Axie's mother. This experience is always in the background as she moves on with her life, eventually becoming a midwife, providing services for women, rich and poor, which are evidently in great demand.Eventually becoming rich enough to have a grand house built (it is interesting to read about a time when Fifth Avenue was being developed from fields) Axie continues to help women in need, even when retiring is a financial possibility.However, Axie's nemesis, Anthony Comstock, of the Society for Suppression of Vice, is determined to bring her down and it looks as if he may well have succeeded.I enjoyed this book, particularly the history and sense of place it evoked. The ending was very satisfying, as was the insight into the mores and attitudes of those times.

Really enjoyed this book. I liked the idea is was loosely based on a real person and was told along the lines of 'this is a real life story' even though its mostly made up about what could have happened, but this factor gives it more of an exciting edge, that you feel youre reading and looking in on a real persons notorious, secretive life.The detail is great, seeing the frustration of being a woman in the era touches your heart at points when you think of the suffering and restraints on them.The personal story line to do with family and how it evolves is quite nice, youre constantly hoping it works out for the main character after all her fighting to be someone and have a family.I love period books so this ticked all the boxes for me, would recommend it, a good read that kept me engaged and I got through it quite quickly.Will definitely be looking at her other books,

A grim read, and grimly engaging. Modern women forget exactly how many freedoms we have in the West, particularly our control of our bodies and reproduction. Unlikely to make a school reading list, but access to this information is an important part of understanding history. I taught history, and it's sanitised - which is why the "Horrible Histories" book series is so popular with kids - all the bits polite society shudders at! I guess that makes this book a "Horrible History" book for Young Adults - and grimly horrible it is, too.