Madam

The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

By: Debby Applegate

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

Length: 20 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The compulsively listenable and sometimes jaw-dropping story of the life of a notorious madam who played hostess to every gangster, politician, writer, sports star, and Cafe Society swell worth knowing, and who as much as any single figure helped make the '20s roar - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Most Famous Man in America.

“Applegate’s tour de force about Jazz Age icon Polly Adler will seize you by the lapels, buy you a drink, and keep you reading until the very last page.... A treat for fiction and nonfiction fans alike." (Abbott Kahler, New York Times best-selling author (as Karen Abbott) of The Ghosts of Eden Park)

Simply put: Everybody came to Polly's. Pearl "Polly" Adler (1900-1962) was a diminutive dynamo whose Manhattan brothels in the Roaring '20s became places not just for men to have the company of women but were key gathering places where the culturati and celebrity elite mingled with high society and with violent figures of the underworld - and had a good time doing it. 

As a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, Polly Adler's life is a classic American story of success and assimilation that starts like a novel by Henry Roth and then turns into a glittering real-life tale straight out of F. Scott Fitzgerald. She declared her ambition to be "the best goddam madam in all America" and succeeded wildly. Debby Applegate uses Polly's story as the key to unpacking just what made the 1920s the appallingly corrupt yet glamorous and transformational era that it was and how the collision between high and low is the unique ingredient that fuels American culture.

©2021 Debby Applegate (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Pearl to Polly, shtetl child to savvy New Yorker, Brooklyn corset factory girl to Manhattan’s most notorious brothel owner: Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Debby Applegate, tells a fast-paced tale of radical, willful transformation. . .Replete with accounts of Polly’s many court battles, newspaper headlines, mobster dealings and society gossip, Madam is a breathless tale told through extraordinary research.” --The New York Times Book Review

"A biography that is also a story of America bursting into the modern age, with new roles for women, new rules for couples, and parties that flowed into rooms down the hall.” --CBS Sunday Morning

“[Madam] is. . .a hugely digressive book in the best possible way: You meet a lot of gangsters and high rollers in Adler’s New York, and they cross paths with novelists, entertainers, professional boxers, and now and then a mayor or a Rockefeller.” --Curbed

Story of 20 through the eyes of a madam

I was hesitant at first as I never heard of this madam . But her story on NYT and then cbs Sunday got me interested. And I enjoyed all the history of this biography. So many big names but beyond the skin trade this book is an eye opening on chat happen in the -st half 20th century in NEW YORK And the early start of the entertainment industry high broadway and Hollywood.

Debby Applegate is amazing!

This book is a masterful undertaking. I was very moved by the fact that a little girl was sent to another country and left to fend for herself. Holly Adler was truly a survivor and a historical icon. Debby is a class act!

thumbs up

a story that needed to be told to help understand women's roles as players in evolution of American society. extremely well written and narrated

Thrilling ride through roaring 20s—Page-turner!

Polly Adler is Horacio Alger of the sexy underworld. Her trials and tribulations make for a breathtaking romp through three decades of shifting American attitudes about sex, women in business, and the immigrant experience. Beautifully read. Applegate’s got a great ear for story & dialogue.

Broadway's Underside

“Madam” is the lively, fascinating tale of Polly Adler, a poor but plucky immigrant who developed the premier brothel in New York City in the gangster days of the ‘20s and ‘30. Her houses drew famous playwrights, musicians, actors and politicians, some seeking her company more than her women. But Polly also befriended hoodlums and killers like Arnold Rothstein and Dutch Schultz, and she had to put up with constant pressure from dishonest policemen demanding bribes. The book displays the transient glamor of her business and her life, but it also displays the ruined lives, the despair, the violence and the graft. The book is about more than just Polly Adler: it’s a kaleidoscopic view of nightlife and show business in New York City during Prohibition and the Depression.

Debby Applegate writes with a light, gossipy tone, using a lot of slang that gives the book a flavor of Polly’s Broadway world. The author names names, many still familiar today. She builds suspense as civic leaders try to shut down the gangs and the brothels, and the gangsters fight back. She doesn’t hide Polly’s follies, but she shows enough of the challenges of immigrant poverty to justify Polly’s determination to crawl up and out. Overall, “Madam” is an entertaining and well-researched biography of a woman and her era.

Loved Madam!

Kept my attention from start to finish. This book was worth the wait. Suspenseful and engaging.

Wow

Such a great memoir/biography!

This book makes me feel like a fly on all of the best walls but only for the interesting parts and there are loads of those.

Extremely interesting story! Well worth the listen

To qualify all of this, I am not a literary expert. That being said, I found this book to be engaging.

The reader did a great job keeping the material lively, even when having to recite dates and other historical material that can come across boring to some.

I feel like I learned a few things about the Era and gained some perspective.

I would recommend it to history lovers, people interested in economics, or people interested in the business practices of a Great Depression Era Madam...

Great Biography of working woman

Creative and historically compelling story of a woman who used her bravery and desire for stability to build a business in a male dominated and dangerous era. Fun story telling of a little talked about job option for women during the jazz age.

Colorful Woman centered historical fiction

Polly Adler‘s spunk, fortitude, determination, loyalty, strength and ingenuity were rife in this very well-written, interesting saga which brought to life the roaring era of America’s history and showed a side of it that we don’t often see. It is a down to earth revealing of human nature and the personalities of different famous people in our history and how what they did that no one knew they did has helped form us as the people we are (albeit a “seedy side” or not).