chicago

   Let`s talk about Maurine Watkins. "What? Who?" Don't feel bad. I too didn't know who she was until recently and now she is my hero. Here is a woman who decided that being a Christian doesn't mean being sheltered/ignorant and went on to do police reporting for the Chicago Tribune, wrote Chicago (you know, the play that was turned into the musical which features such catchy tunes as "The Cell Block Tango" and "They Both Reached For The Gun"), and when that unfortunately turned out to be her only really successful work, toured the States establishing scholarships at various seminaries for Greek studies. She attended various colleges and universities, she worked in Hollywood, she suspected that Leopold and Loeb were sociopathic liars while most other reporters were extolling their virtues. She was a lady in the 1920s who decided that marriage wasn't for her and was independently wealthy. In short: she's admirable.

   Have you seen Chicago? It's based on true events. Some of it is taken pretty much directly from cases Maurine reported on. Roxie Hart declaring she's pregnant in order to get the press to pay attention to her again? Beulah Annan pulled that one off flawlessly. Maurine was reporting in a city where women regularly charmed their way out of murder charges, and it didn't sit well with her. So what did she do? She wrote articles that were scathing and witty and went on to write a satirical play about Chicago's love of celebrity and criminals.

   The Girls of Murder City / Douglas Perry tells the whole story excellently. It's engaging. It's informative. It's funny. My love of non-fiction has been growing and growing since I started purposefully reading more of it last year and this book is just adding fuel to my fire. Want a portrait of Prohibition-era Chicago? Want a peek into newspaper politics? This book is forrrrrrr youuuuuu. At one point Douglas Perry takes a break from the bizarre trials of the women in "murderess row" to tell you about the previously mentioned Leopold and Loeb case and it is chilling and a reminder that oh yeah, murder is not actually funny.

   This is one of those books that I kept taking a break from to do some extensive wikipedia-ing. Apparently the real-life stories that get me interested are either about murder/crime or about polar exploration. I'm okay with that.