Ladies and Not-so-Gentle Women

 (5 customer reviews)

If you love a good victorian novel or a fine James or Wharton work, you will love Lewis' book. He is a superior writer who has brought together an incredible amount of penetrating and enjoyable material about four amazing REAL women. The word that suits this book is ABUNDANCE. I ate it up. There are side stories, and gossipy inserts, historical facts and little known incidents brought to life. I loved it and brought the big babe to bed for many nights reading. What makes a book is the writer and if you add a good writer to great subjects and then times that by 4(!) you have Lewis. Don't let them slam you in the stacks babe -- you rock!

As a voracious reader of everything, but especially social history and even more of olde new york, I was so excited to discover this book. But, it is hard to plow through the verbiage, repetition, and confusion of this book. Each of these woman could have been the subject of her own book and Lewis has done little in the first three quarters to give us anything so we may understand connections that merit their lives being twined together in this fashion. Also, Lewis has tried hard to develop mystery and suspense where there doesn't need to be any - these ladies are great just the way they are, the endless foreshadowing, broad hinting and leaving a story just when it gets interesting is rather silly. The author has obviously done detailed research, but I found it confusing enough to have to jump back and forth between the narratives about the four subjects, but threw up my hands as chapter after chapter began with three pages on someone new who turned out to be the sister or next door...Read more

Each of these women could easily have had their own biography, but the author does a pretty good job of covering all four, their relationships with their world and each other. This book is a bit disorganized, but once you sort out the characters, this is a wonderful view of four outstanding women and their world.