Shaketown: The Madam's Daughter--Now Available!

Published by Quile Press: Shaketown: The Madam's Daughter is the story of Cayley, an Irish servant who becomes the most powerful and wealthy madam in 1890s San Francisco, and her cohort, an educated Chinese immigrant in trouble with warring tong associations in Chinatown. Both struggle with prejudice--cultural and racial--and their own conceptions of good and evil. Together, they become leaders of an underworld elite. The glittering city, with its crytal-heavy hotels and squalid slums is the perfect, misty backdrop for this tale of family, both born- and chosen.

I worked on this book for ten years--getting the history right (especially since the book is based on a real character) was important for me; history played a big part in my travel books, and has always been a topic of interest. And I grew up on the outskirts of San Francisco, sure that it was the city of my dreams. I did end of moving there for many years, and I wasn't disappointed. Quite a few of the landmarks that appear in the novel are still in existence--maybe a walking tour will be created around it, who knows! You can purchase the book in E-format and as a paperback at Amazon and a number of other outlets including Book Country/Penguin Press.

The REAL Ripper

The "real" Jack the Ripper--on whom Shaketown's Ripper was modeled--murdered five prostitutes in London in 1888.  He was never caught or identified, and may have been responsible for many more deaths. The murders occurred in Britain at a critical moment when feminist politics challenged social norms, and the country witnessed intense conflict over gender and class divisions--the unrest spread to America. Contradictory interpretations of feminine roles in society transformed the Ripper into a   cautionary tale, a mythic warning to women on the perils of sexuality. The Victorian separation of "proper" women into objects of chaste worship and "soiled doves" was one of the reasons for the popularity of prostitution. However, for many women, a foray into prostitution was neither dangerous nor a life sentence. In Shaketown, Opal's dream of saving up and moving to Seattle came true for many-- it wasn't unusual for women who went into "the trade" to conserve the money they earned and find legitimate work and a new life under a new name.

The REAL Cayley Wallace

The REAL Tess Wall

   Cayley's character in Shaketown is based on a real woman by the name of Tess (Theresa) Wall. Though I pulled many elements of Cayley's life out of thin air, Tessie's real life was so compelling I felt I had to create a character that honored her. Like Cayley, Tess was born to a poor Irish family "South of the Slot" (Market Street), worked as a domestic servant for a time and married a fireman with a weakness for drink. How she came to be in "the business" was pure conjecture on my part, but the fact that she was the most notorious and successful Madame in San Francisco is true. I can only hope that she had close friends like Opal, Ellen and Beatrice as Cayley does in the book. One fact about Tess' life is well-known: she married a gambler by the name of Frank Daroux. An acrimonious divorce followed by Daroux' subsequent affair led her to shoot him, uttering the famous line, "I shot him 'cause I love him, God damn him!" Daroux survived, but refused to prosecute--he left town shortly thereafter.