The Mayor of Maxwell Street
Upon the death of her older brother, Nelly Sawyer becomes heir to her family’s Kentucky horse breeding estate and the premier debutante of elite Black society. But Nelly is not interested in the constraints and trappings of wealth and prestige. For some time, she has been submitting articles about ordinary Black people living on the South Side of Chicago to the Chicago Defender under a pseudonym. Now she wants her own byline, and to get it, her assignment is to profile the shadowy Mayor of Maxwell Street, the man who’s been coordinating the work of local vice and bootlegging bosses across race lines.
The Mayor of Maxwell Street is Cunningham’s first novel. It leads readers from cotillions and polo fields to the smoky basement of the jazz and gaming tables of the Lantern Club on Maxwell Street in 1920s Chicago. The overarching plot is tense with action and danger, and the love story between Nelly and the mysterious Jay Shorey is complicated by their present lives and their past. Characters are complex and must make difficult decisions, sometimes endangering the lives of others. And then there are the descriptive insights: “observing these two palatial people stripping each other down to the studs.”
While some scenes resolve a little too conveniently, given the times and the circumstances, little detracts from the overall effect of this tour de force and the question it probes: When the pursuit of freedom carries heavy costs, is it worth the price?
