“Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans”, by Gary Krist

448 pages, Broadway Books, ISBN-13: 978-0770437084

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist is a well-researched and well-written account of this period in New Orleans’ history, just as it was acquiring it’s now-familiar reputation for corruption, sin and greed. While the book breaks no new ground, it does a rather nice and readable job of weaving together the major incidents and forces that shaped New Orleans life during this time, what with all of the ax murders, point-blank shootings in brothels and in the streets, and self-proclaimed dens of sin where jazz is thought to have been born. He also takes us to the crusade of lily-white reformers in positions of political power who not only sought Victorian-era respectability for their city, but wanted people of different races than theirs to stay far away from their vision, a dramatic reversal to what until then had been a remarkably tolerant view of the mixing of races.

The center of Empire of Sin is “Storyville”, named for city alderman Sidney Story (much to his chagrin), who wrote the legislation to control prostitution within the city. The ordinance designated a sixteen block area as the part of the city in which prostitution (although still nominally illegal) was tolerated or regulated and removed from – ahem – “respectable” New Orleans. It is here that Krist shows himself to be, again, the multi-faceted historian he is as he exposes us to many sections of New Orleans, and by simply reporting on the happenings in each, he gracefully points out their differences and illuminates how they were sometimes woven together. All the while, he sticks entirely to the historical record – without deviation, and without speculation. With that said, however, I did rather think that there was an overemphasis on some of the more notorious crimes committed during the period which would have better been gathered in a single chapter, rather than serve as the principal organizing theme of the book as a whole.

Empire of Sin also unfortunately adopts the nostalgic and popular view of Storyville as a noble social experiment were women willingly entered the life of prostitution which they happily practiced in glamorous salons. The reality of course was otherwise; these women (often only teenagers, or even younger) were forced into the life by crushing poverty where they were victimized by pimps and madams and spent their typically short lives addicted to drugs and afflicted by STDs – thus, instead of gracing the beginning of chapter 10 with one of E.J. Bellocq’s more famous photos of a seemingly happy and carefree prostitute, Krist would have better used one of the photographer’s darker images of the face of a much older and worn sex worker staring at the lens through an ugly black eye.

All is not darkness and gloom, however: there is the introduction of Louis Armstrong to the world, for example, who was inspired by listening to Buddy Bolden, the father of jazz (we think); there’s also Mary Deubler, going by the names Josie Lobrano and Josie Arlington, who had to make sure her beloved niece didn’t find out that she was the madam of a brothel in Storyville (didn’t work – the lengths to which she went to keep her niece from finding out are amusing, but sad as well, because where could Josie find the time to simply appreciate her niece with all that effort expended to cover her tracks? The eventual revelation is bittersweet). These bits of lagniappe make the book come alive for Empire of Sin is a swift, breathtaking read that adds more depth to the history of early New Orleans for those already familiar with it, and tidal waves of emotion for whom it is new. It’s jarring to learn that after the Civil War, during the early 1870s Reconstruction, schools were desegregated, interracial marriage was fine, and blacks and whites lived side by side in the same neighborhoods…then came the end of Reconstruction and white reformers wanted things their way. Much of the New Orleans profiled here is like that, where you can’t believe what you’re reading, and you're interested to see how it plays out, even hoping the smallest hope that it might be able to get back to what it once was. Krist takes us there, but of course, we must eventually return here. It is a spectacular journey though, and we're richer for the experience.