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The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold
THE VIVID, SCANDAL-FILLED STORY OF A SHREWD, RAGS-TO-RICHES MILLIONAIRESS AND THE RUTHLESS POLITICIAN WHO PURSUED HER, TOLD AGAINST THE EFFERVESCENT BACKDROP OF AMERICA’S GOLDEN CITY—SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco, until the mid-1940s, was a city that lived by its own rules, fast and loose. Formed by the gold rush and destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, it served as a pleasure palace for the legions of men who sought their fortunes in the California foothills. For the women who followed, their only choice was to support, serve, or submit.
Inez Burns was different. She put everyone to shame with her dazzling, calculated, stone-cold ambition.
Born in the slums of San Francisco to a cigar-rolling alcoholic, Inez transformed herself into one of California’s richest women, becoming a notorious powerbroker, grand dame, and iconoclast. A stunning beauty with perfumed charm, she rose from manicurist to murderess to millionaire, seducing one man after another, bearing children out of wedlock, and bribing politicians and cops along the way to secure her place in the San Francisco firmament.
Inez ruled with incandescent flair. She owned five hundred hats and a closet full of furs, had two small toes surgically removed to fit into stylish high heels, and had two ribs excised to accentuate her hourglass figure. Her presence was defined by couture dresses from Paris, red-carpet strutting at the San Francisco Opera, and a black Pierce-Arrow that delivered her everywhere. She threw outrageous parties on her sprawling, eight-hundred-acre horse ranch, a compound with servants, cooks, horse groomers, and trainers, where politicians, judges, attorneys, Hollywood moguls, and entertainers gamboled over silver fizzes.
Inez was adored by the desperate women who sought her out—and loathed by the power-hungry men who plotted to destroy her.
During a time when women risked their lives with predatory practitioners lurking in back alleys, Inez and her team of women, clad in crisp, white nurse’s uniforms, worked night and day in her elegantly appointed clinic, performing fifty thousand of the safest, most hygienic abortions available during a time when even the richest wives, Hollywood stars, and mistresses had few options when they found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy.
Inez’s illegal business bestowed upon her power and influence—until a determined politician by the name of Edmund G. (Pat) Brown—the father of current California Governor Jerry Brown—used Inez to catapult his nascent career to national prominence.
In The Audacity of Inez Burns, Stephen G. Bloom, the author of the bestselling Postville, reveals a jagged slice of lost American history. From Inez’s riveting tale of glamour and tragedy, he has created a brilliant, compulsively readable portrait of an unforgettable woman during a moment when America’s pendulum swung from compassion to criminality by punishing those who permitted women to control their own destinies.
San Francisco, until the mid-1940s, was a city that lived by its own rules, fast and loose. Formed by the gold rush and destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, it served as a pleasure palace for the legions of men who sought their fortunes in the California foothills. For the women who followed, their only choice was to support, serve, or submit.
Inez Burns was different. She put everyone to shame with her dazzling, calculated, stone-cold ambition.
Born in the slums of San Francisco to a cigar-rolling alcoholic, Inez transformed herself into one of California’s richest women, becoming a notorious powerbroker, grand dame, and iconoclast. A stunning beauty with perfumed charm, she rose from manicurist to murderess to millionaire, seducing one man after another, bearing children out of wedlock, and bribing politicians and cops along the way to secure her place in the San Francisco firmament.
Inez ruled with incandescent flair. She owned five hundred hats and a closet full of furs, had two small toes surgically removed to fit into stylish high heels, and had two ribs excised to accentuate her hourglass figure. Her presence was defined by couture dresses from Paris, red-carpet strutting at the San Francisco Opera, and a black Pierce-Arrow that delivered her everywhere. She threw outrageous parties on her sprawling, eight-hundred-acre horse ranch, a compound with servants, cooks, horse groomers, and trainers, where politicians, judges, attorneys, Hollywood moguls, and entertainers gamboled over silver fizzes.
Inez was adored by the desperate women who sought her out—and loathed by the power-hungry men who plotted to destroy her.
During a time when women risked their lives with predatory practitioners lurking in back alleys, Inez and her team of women, clad in crisp, white nurse’s uniforms, worked night and day in her elegantly appointed clinic, performing fifty thousand of the safest, most hygienic abortions available during a time when even the richest wives, Hollywood stars, and mistresses had few options when they found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy.
Inez’s illegal business bestowed upon her power and influence—until a determined politician by the name of Edmund G. (Pat) Brown—the father of current California Governor Jerry Brown—used Inez to catapult his nascent career to national prominence.
In The Audacity of Inez Burns, Stephen G. Bloom, the author of the bestselling Postville, reveals a jagged slice of lost American history. From Inez’s riveting tale of glamour and tragedy, he has created a brilliant, compulsively readable portrait of an unforgettable woman during a moment when America’s pendulum swung from compassion to criminality by punishing those who permitted women to control their own destinies.
448 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 6, 2018
448 people are currently reading
671 people want to read
About the author
Stephen G. Bloom
10 books16 followersI teach narrative journalism at the University of Iowa. I'm the author of The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold (Regan Arts, 2018); Tears of Mermaids: The Secret Story of Pearls (St. Martin's Press, 2011); The Oxford Project [with photographer Peter Feldstein] (Welcome Books, 2010); Inside the Writer's Mind (Wiley, 2002); and Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (Harcourt, 2000). I've worked as a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, San Jose Mercury News, and Sacramento Bee. My essays and articles have appeared in Smithsonian, Sunday Guardian, The New York Times, Best New Writing 2016, Salon, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. For more information, please see: https://clas.uiowa.edu/sjmc/people/st...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
March 8, 2018
There are so many things that I love about this book. For me, one that stands out is Bloom's description of the protagonist, Inez Burns, as the complex person that she was: a person who took great care of the women who came into her clinic and believed in the rightness of what she did in that clinic, but relishing and sheltering the money she made off them, murdering (apparently) one of her husbands, paying off the local authorities, and striving to be a member in good standing among San Francisco's wealthy elite. It's a wonderful portrait of a true American character and, as I read about her, I couldn't help thinking that any great actress would jump at the chance to play her. Indeed, many of the scenes have a cinematic quality to them—from the opening description of a phone conversation that set Bloom off to write this story to the description of Burns providing abortions to desperate women in a park after the San Francisco earthquake to the celebrity-filled parties at Burns' ranch to Pat Brown's several attempts to take her down in court. And more...
July 17, 2018
Wow, what an amazing story - this was so well researched, and gave me insights into a world and a time that I knew nothing about. Even weirder - I am familiar with the house where she lived. So glad I read this one
April 5, 2018
How many times should the government be able to retry the same case after losing? How many times should the government request more money for back taxes? From this account it seems to be multiple, at their discretion and it doesn't seem ethical. It should be one and done and move on.
December 30, 2018
This biography is really wonderful. Although the author sometimes goes overboard with facts, the story of Inez, an abortionist in San Francisco for 50 years, is something I couldn't put down. It is also a history of the political life of San Francisco, the corruption, graft, and illegal activities that were known by all but never went to trial. Inez is a fascinating character, and her life touched thousands of people throughout her life. I really loved it.
April 7, 2018
I had high hopes for this book. I appreciated Bloom's unapologetic feminist stance and was delighted to see an exploration of a fascinating figure. I enjoyed the tone of his writing at the beginning and thought I would continue to enjoy the book. Sadly, I found Bloom’s approach to be deeply flawed.
Bloom’s grammar is often atrocious: "What got Inez the angriest was who got to make and enforce the rules" (322). Numerous times Bloom uses the word whom then ends the sentence with a preposition. If you care enough to use whom, please construct a sentence that accounts for that level of rhetoric and include the phrase “with whom” instead of separating with and whom. In many sections, the second clause of the sentence is not in accord with the first. I cannot tell if this is poor writing, poor editing, or both? Somewhere around the 200 page mark I stopped reading and started skimming. I became so frustrated trying to understand Bloom's writing. I can appreciate a conversational style; I cannot comprehend flawed sentence structure that obstructs communication.
The footnotes often refer to general research about the period rather than specific details about Inez’s life. This leads the reader to believe that Bloom is taking great liberties. I question the lack of quotation marks in the paragraphs taken from the unpublished manuscript of Inez's granddaughter. Is Bloom paraphrasing? Oh wait, we discover the answer in the Acknowledgements. I disagree with Bloom’s claim that it was necessary to recreate “certain” conversations. It is entirely possible to write non-fiction without fabrication.
Footnote 25 in Chapter Thirteen shows a properly cited published interview. Bloom uses this footnote for a seemingly insignificant fact about Pat Brown's golf game yet nowhere throughout the book do we see the same attention to detail afforded to anecdotes about Inez. Readers cannot tell what was in the manuscript (a.k.a. untested family lore) and what Bloom has invented for the sake of narrative drama. On the page opposite the golfing notation, Bloom writes "Back at her Guerrero Street home, taking a chamomile-and-rose-hips bath in her claw-foot tub, Inez rolled her eyes." I absolutely do not believe Inez told her granddaughter “I rolled my eyes in the tub.” This is the kind of paragraph a novelist composes. Eventually, I had to treat this book as though it is a novel. I distrust invented dialogue. Good description is enough to carry a decent non-fiction text without contrived narrative. Sadly, Bloom decided to create conversations, details, even Inez’s thoughts.
I finally decided to regard this as a picture book since the text is padded with irrelevant photos of places never mentioned in the text. One glaring example is the racist photos depicting the order for people of Japanese descent to report to internment camps. Bloom writes nothing of this and just continues on about the changes coming to "predominantly white Catholic San Francisco" (170). Another strange detail Bloom introduces then drops is "Two bridges ... were about to change everything about San Francisco, and, with it, the nation" (158). This is such an odd claim that Bloom never explains. How did bridges change the nation?
Bloom also repeats the same detail or idea again, and again, and again. I stopped counting the number of times readers are told that Inez is providing a public service. We know. Let's move on. The number of unrelated pictures, and the repetition makes me seriously question whether Bloom is trying to pad the page numbers of his book.
Speaking of photos, why is Inez wearing her coat in the majority of pictures of her? They appear to be photos taken by journalists. If Bloom enjoyed familial access, then where are the photos of Inez’s life? The image credits are a mess of a list so that the reader could not trace the source since a simple comma separates one notation from another.
This book reads more like a valorization of Inez than a biography. We do not see a nuanced investigation into the complexities of her role and the way she conducted herself in society. Instead, Bloom has presented a text littered with inconsistencies (the amount of money she made daily is one prime example. The dollar amount changes depending on the chapter) and invented dialogue. This leaves me no choice but to be very suspicious of the research he has claimed he has done outside of the cited newspaper and public records details.
Ultimately, Bloom’s rhetoric distracts from his ability to tell a very interesting story about an important figure. In the hands of another writer, the life of Inez Burns would have made a fascinating and compelling book.
Bloom’s grammar is often atrocious: "What got Inez the angriest was who got to make and enforce the rules" (322). Numerous times Bloom uses the word whom then ends the sentence with a preposition. If you care enough to use whom, please construct a sentence that accounts for that level of rhetoric and include the phrase “with whom” instead of separating with and whom. In many sections, the second clause of the sentence is not in accord with the first. I cannot tell if this is poor writing, poor editing, or both? Somewhere around the 200 page mark I stopped reading and started skimming. I became so frustrated trying to understand Bloom's writing. I can appreciate a conversational style; I cannot comprehend flawed sentence structure that obstructs communication.
The footnotes often refer to general research about the period rather than specific details about Inez’s life. This leads the reader to believe that Bloom is taking great liberties. I question the lack of quotation marks in the paragraphs taken from the unpublished manuscript of Inez's granddaughter. Is Bloom paraphrasing? Oh wait, we discover the answer in the Acknowledgements. I disagree with Bloom’s claim that it was necessary to recreate “certain” conversations. It is entirely possible to write non-fiction without fabrication.
Footnote 25 in Chapter Thirteen shows a properly cited published interview. Bloom uses this footnote for a seemingly insignificant fact about Pat Brown's golf game yet nowhere throughout the book do we see the same attention to detail afforded to anecdotes about Inez. Readers cannot tell what was in the manuscript (a.k.a. untested family lore) and what Bloom has invented for the sake of narrative drama. On the page opposite the golfing notation, Bloom writes "Back at her Guerrero Street home, taking a chamomile-and-rose-hips bath in her claw-foot tub, Inez rolled her eyes." I absolutely do not believe Inez told her granddaughter “I rolled my eyes in the tub.” This is the kind of paragraph a novelist composes. Eventually, I had to treat this book as though it is a novel. I distrust invented dialogue. Good description is enough to carry a decent non-fiction text without contrived narrative. Sadly, Bloom decided to create conversations, details, even Inez’s thoughts.
I finally decided to regard this as a picture book since the text is padded with irrelevant photos of places never mentioned in the text. One glaring example is the racist photos depicting the order for people of Japanese descent to report to internment camps. Bloom writes nothing of this and just continues on about the changes coming to "predominantly white Catholic San Francisco" (170). Another strange detail Bloom introduces then drops is "Two bridges ... were about to change everything about San Francisco, and, with it, the nation" (158). This is such an odd claim that Bloom never explains. How did bridges change the nation?
Bloom also repeats the same detail or idea again, and again, and again. I stopped counting the number of times readers are told that Inez is providing a public service. We know. Let's move on. The number of unrelated pictures, and the repetition makes me seriously question whether Bloom is trying to pad the page numbers of his book.
Speaking of photos, why is Inez wearing her coat in the majority of pictures of her? They appear to be photos taken by journalists. If Bloom enjoyed familial access, then where are the photos of Inez’s life? The image credits are a mess of a list so that the reader could not trace the source since a simple comma separates one notation from another.
This book reads more like a valorization of Inez than a biography. We do not see a nuanced investigation into the complexities of her role and the way she conducted herself in society. Instead, Bloom has presented a text littered with inconsistencies (the amount of money she made daily is one prime example. The dollar amount changes depending on the chapter) and invented dialogue. This leaves me no choice but to be very suspicious of the research he has claimed he has done outside of the cited newspaper and public records details.
Ultimately, Bloom’s rhetoric distracts from his ability to tell a very interesting story about an important figure. In the hands of another writer, the life of Inez Burns would have made a fascinating and compelling book.
June 3, 2021
Una historia interesante con una protagonista totalmente imperfecta y con momentos de lucidez y también de crueldad pero que con el pasar de las hojas por momentos se va tornando un tanto monótono
May 24, 2021
This was fantastic.
It's a rag to riches story of a woman in the turn of the century San Francisco who becomes the top abortion clinic in the city and eventually experiences the downfall of her illegal practice. I was unfamiliar with San Francisco's past until I read this book and was happy to see so many historic photographs throughout the book.
Great story. 4.5/5
It's a rag to riches story of a woman in the turn of the century San Francisco who becomes the top abortion clinic in the city and eventually experiences the downfall of her illegal practice. I was unfamiliar with San Francisco's past until I read this book and was happy to see so many historic photographs throughout the book.
Great story. 4.5/5
April 3, 2018
Inez Burns is one of the great characters who was lost to history until now. Four husbands, a scandalous career, rags to riches, this colorful story has it all ---as San Francisco's Grande Dame of Vice goes on to play a dramatic cat and mouse game with another equally ambitious lawyer named Pat Brown. Brown, who later becomes Governor of California and the father of the current governor, used Inez to become San Francisco's DA. All of this is set against turn-of-the-20th Century San Francisco where options for poor, uneducated women were scarce and every corner of the city was dirty and corrupt. The ambition of Inez was grand and she lived out loud, bribing cops and police chiefs, fighting Al Capone's mobster who tried to muscle in on her business, dumping husbands in grand style, stealing her niece boyfriends, and helping thousands of women 'in need'. Socialites, Hollywood stars, Olympic athletes, overwhelmed housewives and poor, pregnant, abandoned girls --she was the ultimate fixer for all. Her ambition carried her to mansions in LA, ranches that she bought and partied in, a box at the Opera, custom-made clothes, a wild erotic life and ultimately two terms in prison. And she was audacious and defiant to the end. THE AUDACITY OF INEZ BURNS is a fascinating portrait of a man and a woman and an equally important and detailed history of San Francisco during this wild time. Out of control, ambitious characters abound ---with lessons for today.
June 6, 2019
Captivating read, extremely relevant given the current political climate when once again women’s reproductive health and politics collide.
January 10, 2019
Fascinating story
It's truth is part of the fascination. The most important revelation was the attitude toward abortion being more tolerant before Roe v. wade and that it was easier in the past than today to obtain one. The author obviously did tons or careful research and readers can feel confident in the essential truth of the story. Inez Burns was indeed audacious and an amazing woman, one cannot,help but admire her for her energy and hard work despite her greed, hunger for power and status, and unscrupulous ways.
The book takes considerable time for Inez's story to begin. The author summarizes the book, describes his interest in the story as a journalist, his failure to get it published in newspapers, being turned down by publishing companies as a story best swept under the rug. In so doing, the author sets up expectations of reading a documentary. In fact, it turns next to a near biblical sequence of begats along with other relatives until we get to the birth of Inez.
I found it disconcerting for the author to switch between the style of a reporter and being a fly on Inez's wall and relating her innermost thoughts. Facts like the rent she paid were well footnoted, but the fact that he had to use some imagination in personal scenes and conversations came at the end.
I wish expectations had been set up at the outset and the author's personal interest in the story had been left to the back material. I advise readers to stick with it as the story itself is worth it.
It's truth is part of the fascination. The most important revelation was the attitude toward abortion being more tolerant before Roe v. wade and that it was easier in the past than today to obtain one. The author obviously did tons or careful research and readers can feel confident in the essential truth of the story. Inez Burns was indeed audacious and an amazing woman, one cannot,help but admire her for her energy and hard work despite her greed, hunger for power and status, and unscrupulous ways.
The book takes considerable time for Inez's story to begin. The author summarizes the book, describes his interest in the story as a journalist, his failure to get it published in newspapers, being turned down by publishing companies as a story best swept under the rug. In so doing, the author sets up expectations of reading a documentary. In fact, it turns next to a near biblical sequence of begats along with other relatives until we get to the birth of Inez.
I found it disconcerting for the author to switch between the style of a reporter and being a fly on Inez's wall and relating her innermost thoughts. Facts like the rent she paid were well footnoted, but the fact that he had to use some imagination in personal scenes and conversations came at the end.
I wish expectations had been set up at the outset and the author's personal interest in the story had been left to the back material. I advise readers to stick with it as the story itself is worth it.
November 10, 2018
This is a very well written book. Anyone with even a minimal interest in the history of the city San Francisco, may find this book fascinating.
This is a true story. Inez the main character, a native of the city, ran a medically professional and medically very safe abortion clinic. Her main antagonist was Gov Brown senior, who was San Francisco DA in the 1940’s.
This could read as a mystery. This book will not bore you.
This is a true story. Inez the main character, a native of the city, ran a medically professional and medically very safe abortion clinic. Her main antagonist was Gov Brown senior, who was San Francisco DA in the 1940’s.
This could read as a mystery. This book will not bore you.
January 10, 2019
A very well-researched yet lively biography. I really enjoyed reading about old SF and the many landmarks mentioned in the book. I read it in two sittings. It was hard to put down.
March 11, 2019
On a macro level, this book is a captivating exploration of the mores, culture, and economic climate that defined San Francisco at the turn of the last century. On a micro level, it is a surprisingly intimate account of one woman's journey from her start as a young, attractive manicurist in service (with benefits) to San Francisco's male elite, to her ultimate destination as a denizen of the City's wealthiest echelon, having made her fortune as the City's most highly regarded and successful abortionist. At the height of her "success," Pat Brown, a newly elected district attorney, a Catholic, and the future governor of California, stakes his burgeoning political career on the destruction of Inez's abortion-based empire. His efforts lead to three criminal trials which provide absorbing insights into the political and legal climate of Inez's time, juxtaposed against the backdrop of society's vacillating moral attitudes regarding abortion and women's health. Despite much of the book's focus on events of nearly a century ago, the issues surrounding Inez's unlikely career and ultimate downfall are remarkably relatable to debates still raging today. Inez would be an intriguing character, even without the political and moral turmoil that defined much of her life. She was an enigma - a bold, driven, pioneering woman far ahead of her times in many respects, but also a woman with virtually no agenda beyond herself. Her story serves as a thoroughly researched historical reference and a fascinating character study -- in short, a great read.
December 4, 2018
Mr. Bloom's stated goal for the quality of his writing in this book was that it be an 'un-put-downable' read. I think, for me, he accomplished that. Inez Burns definitely has a place in history, in San Francisco Francisco, and in the availability of safe abortion services. She was also a unique individual. One with dreams, drive, ambition and a great goal of financial independence. She didn't need or want societal approval; but she wanted to choose her lifestyle, and her tastes, because she actually liked what she chose, not because some people of a different class and breeding decided to grant her access. She was guided by her own compass, and her own code. To be true to it, she had to be tough, disciplined, hardworking, and stand her ground, even with those closest to her. Inez is a great example of an individualist, with all the accompanying idiosyncrasies required to combine her charm and hardness into what she became in order to grow into who she came to be.
This is a great story about a driven person of unique quality and character, who took an opportunity, and made it her life's work. Her work as an abortionist both gave and took everything she had. Inez' story, especially played out in the context of the fascinating City of San Francisco, is "un-put-down-able!"
This is a great story about a driven person of unique quality and character, who took an opportunity, and made it her life's work. Her work as an abortionist both gave and took everything she had. Inez' story, especially played out in the context of the fascinating City of San Francisco, is "un-put-down-able!"
December 30, 2018
Inez Burns lived mostly in the first half of the XX century. Her childhood was not easy, with an alcoholic father. She was very clever and decided this was not the life she wanted. When she found the opportunity to work in a nail salon located in a very expensive hotel, she immediately grabbed it. She knew she would get to meet very important people and start building some relationships. She then worked with an abortionist doctor where she learnt everything there was to know. After stealing some of his tools, she left and started working on her own. With time, every woman in need of an abortion knew where to go. There was nobody better than her. With time, she became the target of politicians, particularly of Pat Brown, who used her as a springboard for his political interests. She was taken to trial and from there, her life went downhill. Abortion was prohibited then. This main question here is not whether one is in favor or against it, but what things were like then. It very clearly shows us how in times when women got pregnant over and over again because the Catholic church prohibited the use of contraceptives, nuns were victims of rape, or mistresses of important people got pregnant, they had at least an option to solve their problem without the risk of getting killed by unexperienced hands.
Want to read
June 27, 2019I have been adamantly pro-choice my entire life. As a college student, I went to rallies in support of women’s rights, and escorted women into abortion clinics past rabid anti-choice proponents. Inez was a fascinating woman. She provided an invaluable and much sought after service to many women in San Francisco, and did so with great skill and care. Despite her obvious belief in a woman’s right to choose, her motivation was far from altruistic. She was a self-centered narcissist, who relished the vast wealth her career afforded her, and was willing to stop at virtually nothing to achieve it. The book suggests that she was responsible for at least one murder (her husband) and possibly two. After reading Inez’s story, I found myself recognizing that even this staunch defender of a woman’s right to choose could be so flawed in so many aspects of her life. In Inez’s story, I discovered my own naiveté in assuming that a woman, who displayed such courage and determination in challenging the prevailing moral ambiguity of her time, could also be so cold and calculating. It is a fascinating twist on an issue that still divides society today. It is a great read that I would highly recommend.
April 29, 2019
Well, this was a character from history that I had never heard of before My next door neighbor told me about the book, so I requisitioned it from the library.
Inez Burns was one of the most prominent abortionists of her time. She came to San Francisco with her family during the gold rush. Inez began her career as a manicurist and quickly learned how to charm her male clients. Then she met the man who would teach her her calling, abortions. Calculating, driven, focused, she became one of the most sought after abortionists in the country. She decked her clinic out like a high end spa with tea room, offering the best to her clients.
In no time, she became one of the richest people in the country. She flaunted her money and success each day with her flamboyant lifestyle. And this probably is the biggest reason the government set its mark on her.
The book is full of pictures of the time and surroundings where Inez lived. In fact, it is nearly half the book. This makes for a fascinating addition to the story. And thankfully the story is not dry like so many biographies are. I was intrigued for the entire book.
Inez Burns was one of the most prominent abortionists of her time. She came to San Francisco with her family during the gold rush. Inez began her career as a manicurist and quickly learned how to charm her male clients. Then she met the man who would teach her her calling, abortions. Calculating, driven, focused, she became one of the most sought after abortionists in the country. She decked her clinic out like a high end spa with tea room, offering the best to her clients.
In no time, she became one of the richest people in the country. She flaunted her money and success each day with her flamboyant lifestyle. And this probably is the biggest reason the government set its mark on her.
The book is full of pictures of the time and surroundings where Inez lived. In fact, it is nearly half the book. This makes for a fascinating addition to the story. And thankfully the story is not dry like so many biographies are. I was intrigued for the entire book.
May 28, 2019
The last sentence in the book describes why this book is so timely and essential for us to read and discuss:
“Sadly, what Inez stood for—abortion on demand—is once again under attack, more than one hundred years after Inez performed her first illegal procedure in Dr. Eugene West’s medical office.”
As long as women have unwanted pregnancies, there will be need for a way to terminate them. But a major reason for ending abortion is not to save lives the lives of the unborn but to control the lives of the living--to punish women for being as free with their bodies as men have always been. It's also about the Pat Brown's of the world who are looking for a cause to promote their own political careers. It's not about the life or there would be more about the life of children after they are born, not before they exist.
As is well-documented in this book, Inez provided a service to women before abortion became a dirty word. Her audacity was what destroyed her. She dared to socialize and flaunt her financial success that came from doing what she did--helping women in need.
“Sadly, what Inez stood for—abortion on demand—is once again under attack, more than one hundred years after Inez performed her first illegal procedure in Dr. Eugene West’s medical office.”
As long as women have unwanted pregnancies, there will be need for a way to terminate them. But a major reason for ending abortion is not to save lives the lives of the unborn but to control the lives of the living--to punish women for being as free with their bodies as men have always been. It's also about the Pat Brown's of the world who are looking for a cause to promote their own political careers. It's not about the life or there would be more about the life of children after they are born, not before they exist.
As is well-documented in this book, Inez provided a service to women before abortion became a dirty word. Her audacity was what destroyed her. She dared to socialize and flaunt her financial success that came from doing what she did--helping women in need.
September 23, 2019
Hold on to your hat while you read this book! Inez Burns is truly "audacious". She was the queen of abortions for San Francisco and area women and she was a larger than life personality in the early to mid 1900s. Inez Burns 1886-1976. She loved her money, high society, dressing to the nines, taking lovers of just about any persuasion, breaking rules and living life by her terms and her terms only. She worked the police, the politicians and the doctors in her community - paying big money for their loyalty and silence. Times were changing, though, and Inez's reign was finally, brutally taken down by the ambitious up-and-comer politician Pat Brown. Her story would never have been told except for the connecting of the author and Inez's granddaughter and it still took the author 25 years to come around to pulling off this entertaining, shocking, true-life story of Inez. Stephen Bloom did his homework of the time and the place. The book encompasses not only Inez's story but the fast and loose society of San Francisco. A very interesting read!
December 29, 2018
A big disappointment. I was really excited to receive this as a gift last Christmas and finally got around to reading it this year. Poorly written, repetitive, and clearly expanded to meet the page number set by the publisher. The history is unfocused, poorly cited, and includes dialogue that pushes it into the territory of historical fiction. It is made worse by the fact that every page seems to include contemporary political references to abortion politics and the need for abortionists. While I understand the motive of writing a history of this nature, I felt beat over the head with the author's political beliefs (which, ironically, I happen to agree with). At the end of the day, half of this book could have been cut, and the interjections (like "Say what?") in the second half of the book from the author made me want to puke. It is sold as a serious history of a unique individual, but is anything but.
January 20, 2019
It's hard to rate this book. It was full of interesting information and names in Californian politics that I remember, mostly because of my mother's interest in politics. Inez Burns was a decidedly amazing woman for her time or for any time for that matter. She was the premier abortionist in San Francisco for about 40 years. The thing about this book for me is that it illustrates how far backwards we are going, and have gone, in women's rights. Particularly women's rights concerning their own bodies. It's very difficult to reconcile the realities of today with the powerful movement of the 60's and 70's in regards to women's rights. Women gave up so much, came so far, and then seemed to stop dead in their tracks somehow. Media, politics, etc. Anyway, it was an interesting and good book. Just a little bogged down in political facts and posturing for a chunk in the middle.
November 14, 2018
Excellent history of abortion rights in California:
- Who was getting abortions (mostly married women)
- How the providers got away with (or didn't get away with) carrying out an illegal procedure
- How much money people could make from performing abortions
- How safe or unsafe abortions were
-How society viewed new money (from people like Inez who got rich from entering into this new profession) vs old money
- Attempts to control corruption in the justice system
- And a detailed biography of Inez's personal life
I was not captivated by Inez herself, mostly because I didn't love her personality type. However, learning about her business and interactions with law enforcement was fascinating.
- Who was getting abortions (mostly married women)
- How the providers got away with (or didn't get away with) carrying out an illegal procedure
- How much money people could make from performing abortions
- How safe or unsafe abortions were
-How society viewed new money (from people like Inez who got rich from entering into this new profession) vs old money
- Attempts to control corruption in the justice system
- And a detailed biography of Inez's personal life
I was not captivated by Inez herself, mostly because I didn't love her personality type. However, learning about her business and interactions with law enforcement was fascinating.
April 9, 2019
I'm so glad I learned Inez Burn's story, that I get to picture her every time I walk from my house to Market St, past her house, or take the 22, the same bus she took from her home in the Mission to her clinic in the Fillmore.
Her life was packed with so much bold risk that it'd be difficult to tell her story poorly, and Bloom does a decent job, despite many of the descriptions that remind me of Meg Elison's iconic McSweeney's post, "If women wrote men the way men write women."
Still, in the same way that Bloom observes that there's a reason why Inez was onto something when she thought women might prefer to get an abortion from a woman rather than a man, I wish more women, especially women's health advocates, informed and reviewed this narrative.
Her life was packed with so much bold risk that it'd be difficult to tell her story poorly, and Bloom does a decent job, despite many of the descriptions that remind me of Meg Elison's iconic McSweeney's post, "If women wrote men the way men write women."
Still, in the same way that Bloom observes that there's a reason why Inez was onto something when she thought women might prefer to get an abortion from a woman rather than a man, I wish more women, especially women's health advocates, informed and reviewed this narrative.
March 18, 2025
This was an interesting true accounting of Inez Burns, an abortionist in San Francisco in the early and mid 1900’s.
I found the story to be only about 50% of Inez’ story and 50% about the growth and development of the city and politics of San Francisco , especially the timeline of the career of Edmund Pat Brown, a two term governor of California in the early 1960’s period.
If you’re a political history buff I think you’d find it quite interesting. For me, it was just okay. I’m glad I read it. I did learn quite a bit about a city that has captivated me for most of my adult life and one that is just a short car drive away.
I found the story to be only about 50% of Inez’ story and 50% about the growth and development of the city and politics of San Francisco , especially the timeline of the career of Edmund Pat Brown, a two term governor of California in the early 1960’s period.
If you’re a political history buff I think you’d find it quite interesting. For me, it was just okay. I’m glad I read it. I did learn quite a bit about a city that has captivated me for most of my adult life and one that is just a short car drive away.
December 2, 2018
Such a fascinating story! Love the history and the characters. It should be made into a movie. This book desperately needs editing, though. Bloating abounds. Yes, by all means include some historic info for setting, but please don't digress for pages and pages. The Caruso digression was the worst, although there was also way too much information about Pat Brown. Yes, he was an integral character, but the book was ostensibly about Inez Burns, not him. Plus, there were typos and duplicate info, etc.; a college thesis is better put together.
April 16, 2019
I loved this book on so many levels. First of all, it illustrates the fact that women will always need access to safe abortion, and outlawing abortion won't stop women from obtaining them, safe or not. This book does a wonderful job of describing life in 20th century San Francisco and really lets us get to know Inez Burns. One of my favorite parts was when she gives the Catholic priests a piece of her mind. The author does a fine job of citing his sources, and the vintage photos really give you a feel for the times. Rarely has a piece of non-fiction riveted me like this book!
January 6, 2020
Truman Capote has ruined nonfiction. He’s got all too many journalists using narrative techniques – rather than research or admission of doubt – to promote what they can’t prove. This is a great subject – a successful early 1900s female abortionist! It would be a great magazine article, but the not fully dependable plumping-into-a-book effort shouldn’t have happened. I hope some scholar adds research (maybe there were similarly successful women we’ve never heard about?) and generates a book worth its weight in pages.
January 23, 2019
I had not heard of Inez Burns before now. The detail of her life was very interesting, however the book spent too much time developing characters I didn't think it needed to for the story to still have meaning. It could have been much shorter and an easier read without the extra details of other characters.
June 25, 2019
Interesting history
The author researched and submitted a very interesting segment of San Francisco history as well as presented a defining history of women's rights in California. Had he not followed his curiosity regarding this legendary woman her part in history would have gone untold.
The author researched and submitted a very interesting segment of San Francisco history as well as presented a defining history of women's rights in California. Had he not followed his curiosity regarding this legendary woman her part in history would have gone untold.
November 2, 2019
I wanted to love this one, because I love the backstory and that its true. But, the story read like a series of journalism reports or articles, not an actual story. For the length of the book, I would have preferred a more fictionalized version that told a cohesive story, not a series of pasted together articles.
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