Douglas Perry's Blog
February 16, 2014
NPR interview: 'Eliot Ness Actually Untouchable, Except When It Came to Women'
I had an enjoyable talk with Weekend Edition's Scott Simon about my new book, Eliot Ness: The Rise and Fall of an American Hero.
Listen to the interview
Listen to the interview
February 13, 2014
The Christian Science Monitor reviews 'Eliot Ness'
" 'Eliot Ness' is fast-paced and full of detail that's well-researched but not overbearing. Smart, authoritative, and bristling with challenges to the status quo: It has more than a little in common with its remarkable subject."
Read the full review.
Read the full review.
January 2, 2014
'Girls of Murder City' prequel
If you read "The Girls of Murder City" (you did, right?), there's now an e-book prequel. Check it out...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HMTDMCA
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HMTDMCA
November 6, 2013
First review of 'Eliot Ness: The Rise and Fall of an American Hero'
Publishers Weekly has given a starred review to my biography of Eliot Ness, which comes out in February. Thanks, PW!
A quote from the review:
"With a shrewd mix of drama, insight, and objectivity, Perry artfully chronicles the life of the leader of the 'Untouchables' squad and illuminates his subject's complicated worldview, passions, and faults."
A quote from the review:
"With a shrewd mix of drama, insight, and objectivity, Perry artfully chronicles the life of the leader of the 'Untouchables' squad and illuminates his subject's complicated worldview, passions, and faults."
September 4, 2010
The Barnes & Noble Review: 'The Girls of Murder City'
Novelist Paul Di Filippo:
"I must sternly advise readers not to approach Douglas Perry's The Girls of Murder City without being aware of the risks they run. Like the hero of Jack Finney's Time and Again, who steeped himself so intensely in vintage surroundings that he became unmoored in time and slipped back to Victorian-era New York, so too might the unwary readers of Perry's book find themselves sucked willy-nilly back down the decades to 1920s Chicago, as a result of Perry's incredibly visceral, sensual and hypnotic recreation of that era. Such a pleasant yet disorienting fate happened to me, I swear it. The man is simply a wizard of words, and must be approached with caution."
Read the rest of the review.
"I must sternly advise readers not to approach Douglas Perry's The Girls of Murder City without being aware of the risks they run. Like the hero of Jack Finney's Time and Again, who steeped himself so intensely in vintage surroundings that he became unmoored in time and slipped back to Victorian-era New York, so too might the unwary readers of Perry's book find themselves sucked willy-nilly back down the decades to 1920s Chicago, as a result of Perry's incredibly visceral, sensual and hypnotic recreation of that era. Such a pleasant yet disorienting fate happened to me, I swear it. The man is simply a wizard of words, and must be approached with caution."
Read the rest of the review.
August 28, 2010
PopMatters pops off on 'The Girls of Murder City'
The PopMatters review:
The Fred Ebb/John Kander musical Chicago, conceived and choreographed by Bob Fosse, is now a Broadway standard with productions touring the world. The 2002 movie version of the musical, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellwegger, is an Academy award-winner. The 1926 Maurine Watkins play on which the musical is based, however, has been largely forgotten, and is currently out of print. Even less has been known about Watkins herself and how she came to write the play, until now.
With his book "The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago," Douglas Perry has done us all a great service by chronicling the real events that inspired Maurine Watkins to write her play. Perry’s work is a vivid mix of biography and history that relates Watkins’ life and development as a writer, and recreates Prohibition-era Chicago in all of its seedy glamor.
Read the rest of the review.
The Fred Ebb/John Kander musical Chicago, conceived and choreographed by Bob Fosse, is now a Broadway standard with productions touring the world. The 2002 movie version of the musical, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellwegger, is an Academy award-winner. The 1926 Maurine Watkins play on which the musical is based, however, has been largely forgotten, and is currently out of print. Even less has been known about Watkins herself and how she came to write the play, until now.
With his book "The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago," Douglas Perry has done us all a great service by chronicling the real events that inspired Maurine Watkins to write her play. Perry’s work is a vivid mix of biography and history that relates Watkins’ life and development as a writer, and recreates Prohibition-era Chicago in all of its seedy glamor.
Read the rest of the review.
August 23, 2010
Scandalous women love 'The Girls of Murder City'
Elizabeth Kerri Mahon of the blog Scandalous Women says "The Girls of Murder City" is "the perfect summer read for true crime lovers, gossip lovers, and fans of the musical Chicago."
Read the review.
Read the review.
August 14, 2010
The Wall Street Journal reviews 'The Girls of Murder City'
Jonathan Eig writes:
"'The Girls of Murder City' spans several categories—true-crime, comedy, social history. It turns out that behind 'Chicago' there was a sexy, swaggering, historical tale in no need of a soundtrack. Liked the movie. Loved the book."
Read the entire review.
"'The Girls of Murder City' spans several categories—true-crime, comedy, social history. It turns out that behind 'Chicago' there was a sexy, swaggering, historical tale in no need of a soundtrack. Liked the movie. Loved the book."
Read the entire review.
August 5, 2010
NPR reviews 'The Girls of Murder City'
Writes NPR's Glenn Altschuler:
"Chicago," theater critic Rupert Hughes wrote in 1926, was a work of genius. Written by crime reporter Maurine Watkins, the play sought to "put an end to the ghastly business of railroading pretty women safely through murder trials by making fools of the solemn jurymen."
"Chicago" has been a staple of American popular culture ever since. In 1927, Cecil B. DeMille produced a silent-movie version of the play. Fifteen years later, Twentieth Century Fox remade "Chicago" as a talkie. In 1975, a musical adaptation by director and choreographer Bob Fosse took Broadway by storm, went on tour and reappeared 20 years later to become the longest-running revival on the Great White Way. In 2002, "Chicago" returned to Hollywood — and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
These days, almost no one knows that "Chicago" was inspired by the trials and acquittals of Belva Gaertner, a former cabaret dancer who left the stage to marry one of America's leading manufacturers of scientific instruments; and Beulah Annan, a beauty whose favorite record was "Hula Lou," the tale of a "gal who never could be true."
In "The Girls of Murder City," Douglas Perry tells their stories in delicious and devilish detail. Although the number of killings by women in Chicago was increasing exponentially, Perry points out, jury members — all of whom were male during the Roaring '20s — remained favorably disposed toward "demure ladies with pretty figures and good pedigrees." Even when there was overwhelming evidence against them. Jurors let two blondes off scot free, he reveals, only to sentence to death Sabella Nitti, a "dirty, repulsive" woman and an immigrant to boot. "Nice face — swell clothes — shoot man — go home," Sabella told her fellow inmates. "Me do nothing — me choke."
Read the rest of the review.
"Chicago," theater critic Rupert Hughes wrote in 1926, was a work of genius. Written by crime reporter Maurine Watkins, the play sought to "put an end to the ghastly business of railroading pretty women safely through murder trials by making fools of the solemn jurymen."
"Chicago" has been a staple of American popular culture ever since. In 1927, Cecil B. DeMille produced a silent-movie version of the play. Fifteen years later, Twentieth Century Fox remade "Chicago" as a talkie. In 1975, a musical adaptation by director and choreographer Bob Fosse took Broadway by storm, went on tour and reappeared 20 years later to become the longest-running revival on the Great White Way. In 2002, "Chicago" returned to Hollywood — and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
These days, almost no one knows that "Chicago" was inspired by the trials and acquittals of Belva Gaertner, a former cabaret dancer who left the stage to marry one of America's leading manufacturers of scientific instruments; and Beulah Annan, a beauty whose favorite record was "Hula Lou," the tale of a "gal who never could be true."
In "The Girls of Murder City," Douglas Perry tells their stories in delicious and devilish detail. Although the number of killings by women in Chicago was increasing exponentially, Perry points out, jury members — all of whom were male during the Roaring '20s — remained favorably disposed toward "demure ladies with pretty figures and good pedigrees." Even when there was overwhelming evidence against them. Jurors let two blondes off scot free, he reveals, only to sentence to death Sabella Nitti, a "dirty, repulsive" woman and an immigrant to boot. "Nice face — swell clothes — shoot man — go home," Sabella told her fellow inmates. "Me do nothing — me choke."
Read the rest of the review.
The Chicago Tribune reviews 'The Girls of Murder City'
Writes the Tribune's Chris Jones:
In 1924, the Cook County Jail was full of beautiful young women, alleged man-killers all.
Some in Murder City — otherwise known as Chicago — lamented that this exploding town's young women appeared to have suddenly gone crazy, pumping out lead in every marital dispute or lover's tiff. But Chicago's frantically competitive newspapers were delighted by this fortuitous turn of events, rushing out their police reporters and “sob sisters” to Murderess' Row to squeeze heart-tugging tales from these pretty ladies with their flittering eyes and crimes of passion.
The women — the likes of Belva Gaertner (“Cook County's most stylish murderess”) and Beulah Annan (“the prettiest women ever charged with murder in Chicago”) — could be manipulated in a million different ways. It was a feat of sexist narrative invention — the characters ran the gamut from vamp to girlish malcontent to corrupted innocent to caged tigress — in which the doled-up objects of desire willingly participated. For the word around the prosecutor's office was that the all-male juries of Cook County would never convict a pretty, young “gun girl.” Not if she came with a good story.
Read the rest of the review.
In 1924, the Cook County Jail was full of beautiful young women, alleged man-killers all.
Some in Murder City — otherwise known as Chicago — lamented that this exploding town's young women appeared to have suddenly gone crazy, pumping out lead in every marital dispute or lover's tiff. But Chicago's frantically competitive newspapers were delighted by this fortuitous turn of events, rushing out their police reporters and “sob sisters” to Murderess' Row to squeeze heart-tugging tales from these pretty ladies with their flittering eyes and crimes of passion.
The women — the likes of Belva Gaertner (“Cook County's most stylish murderess”) and Beulah Annan (“the prettiest women ever charged with murder in Chicago”) — could be manipulated in a million different ways. It was a feat of sexist narrative invention — the characters ran the gamut from vamp to girlish malcontent to corrupted innocent to caged tigress — in which the doled-up objects of desire willingly participated. For the word around the prosecutor's office was that the all-male juries of Cook County would never convict a pretty, young “gun girl.” Not if she came with a good story.
Read the rest of the review.
