Redemption; A Novel

Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Inc, 2006. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [14], 348, [6] pages. Signed by the author on the half-title page. Ink notation inside the front cover. Chapters include Fast-Mail; Tom Anderson; Mamie; Adele; Madame Papaloos; Toodloo; and Evangeline. Frederick W. Turner (sometimes Frederick Turner), born in Chicago in 1937, is an American writer, including an acclaimed biography of John Muir, and historical novels. He has published an annotated edition of Geronimo's 1906 autobiography. Turner received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1976 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981. This book is a vivid re-creation of the gangland which was downtown New Orleans in 1913---A relentlessly cruel trade in booze and prostitution and the run of incessant violence that results. Francis Muldoon is a special policeman in the notorious Storyville District of New Orleans in 1913. His job is to see that the District's volatile mixture of sex, alcohol, and gambling doesn't boil over, but instead rolls along at a continuous simmer. He works for the District's vicelord, Tom Anderson, patrolling his patron's honky-tonks and saloons and whorehouses--both the high-priced bordellos and the coffinlike cribs where the girls work with only with a cot and a washbasin. When Adele, a beautiful singer at the Tuxedo dance hall, draws Francis into a contentious rivalry for her affection, a fatal shoot-out is the inevitable conclusion, sending the District into a scalding eruption and revealing the central characters for what they are. Redemption is the powerfully told tale of a man's efforts to restore the integrity of his soul. Derived from a Kirkus review: Storyville, New Orleans' storied red-light district, has its alluring, legendary façade ripped away in this brilliant, searing exposé. It's 1913, and Tom Anderson, in fact and in this meticulously researched fiction, is the unofficial mayor of the District. Francis Muldoon, Turner's protagonist, is one of Anderson's troubleshooters; a dependable fellow, he reports problems in the saloons and the whores' cribs. He has known both glory (as a champion high-school runner) and disgrace (as a rookie cop, he failed to protect another officer in a long-ago race riot). Turner's story moves forward on two tracks. First, Anderson's empire is being threatened by New York thugs—the Parker brothers—opening rival saloons. And Anderson, a lapsed Catholic, is still haunted by his failure as a cop. At the center of the action is "the girl"—secretly Anderson's stepdaughter. He impregnated her while she was still in school, and she left town. Now she's back, singing in the Parkers' beer garden. Seeking reconciliation, the love-struck Anderson uses Muldoon as a go-between. Energized by her stunning beauty, Muldoon sees today's singer becoming tomorrow's whore, and sets out to save her. He's had a chance meeting with another historical character, Bellocq, famous photographer of prostitutes. Looking at their dead eyes in Bellocq's studio has confirmed Muldoon's view of the sex trade as a destructive machine—al viewpoint articulated here with a matchless sorrow. The turf war builds to a wildly suspenseful, bloody climax. Then the other shoe drops as Muldoon indeed finds his own form of redemption. Turner's second has a sustained somber eloquence sure to win acclaim and perhaps a well-deserved prize.