The Mad Girls of New York: A Nellie Bly Novel
The talented Rodale does full justice to intrepid girl reporter Nellie Bly and her trail-blazing exposé in this lively fictionalization. Desperate to get a byline in an 1887 New York newspaper, Nellie proposes going undercover to the asylum at Blackwell’s Island. The place is impenetrable to reporters, so Nellie will get herself committed—not a difficult feat in a society quick to dispose of inconvenient women. What she finds inside horrifies her: starvation, torture, and the broken spirits of women denied their humanity. Nellie must survive without going mad herself, and then she must get out, report her story—and go back to save the rest.
Rodale’s Nellie is bold, inventive, and quick on her feet, remorseless in her ambition but tender in her empathy. Rodale breathes vivid life into Bly’s biography and incredible spirit as she battles her way into a publishing scene that barely offers a toehold for females. Combine crack writing and nail-biting suspense with humor, pathos, a dash of mystery, and a hint of romance, and you have an entertaining, intensely imagined glimpse into the making of Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse and the life of women in New York’s Gilded Age. Gloriously recommended.
