Book of the Month is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, five curators pick out their favorite new hardcover books, and you can choose which one you want to receive on the first of the month for $17.99/month. You can also add up to two additional books for only $9.99 each. (This box was named one of the best subscriptions for avid readers in the 2024 Subscription Box Awards.)
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My BOTM Pick for February: The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham, Hardcover Retail Value $21.23
Back of Book Summary:
The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore, and Chicago is its beating heart.
Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the “wealthiest Negro in America,” whose affluence catapulted his family to the heights of Black society. After the unexpected death of her only brother, Nelly becomes the premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage. For the past year, she has worked undercover as an investigative journalist, sharing the achievements and tribulations of everyday Black people living in the shadow of Jim Crow. Her latest assignment thrusts her into the den of a dangerous vice lord: the so-called Mayor of Maxwell Street.
Born in rural Alabama to a murdered biracial couple, Jay Shorey knows firsthand what it means to be denied a chance at the American dream. When a tragic turn of fate gave Jay a rare path out, he took it without question. He washed up on Chicago’s storied shores and forged his own way to the top of the city’s underworld, running Chicago’s swankiest speakeasy, where the rich and famous rub elbows with gangsters and politicians alike.
When Nelly’s and Jay’s paths cross, she recruits him to help expose the Mayor and bring about lasting change in a corrupt city. But Jay also introduces a whole new world to Nelly, one where her horizons can extend beyond the confines of her ivory tower. Trapped between the monolith of Jim Crow, the inflexible world of the Black upper class, and the violence of Prohibition-era Chicago, Jay and Nelly work together and stoke the flames of a love worth fighting for.
My Summary
The Mayor of Maxwell Street opens with a story straight from the Old South. It's the early part of the 20th century in rural Alabama. A Black teenage boy is falsely accused of rape by a malicious rich white woman and forced to run for his life, leaving behind his only family and the only life he's ever known.
It's a short chapter, but author Avery Cunningham's brevity allows her to spin us directly around into a world that's as far from the dilapidated plantations of rural Alabama as one might get.
It's 1921, and the Black Metropolis of Chicago is thriving.
Here we meet Penelope Ginevra Sawyer — Nelly for short — at a funeral so lavish that invitations have been extended to ensure the who's who of Chicago's Black society are there. On it's face, it's a funeral for Nelly's brother, Elder. At it's heart, this is the Kentucky-based Sawyer family's chance to present their 21-year-old daughter to Chicago society.
And thus we're thrust into the world of Nelly Sawyer, the daughter of the “wealthiest Negro in America," trapped between dual roles as the good daughter and the investigative journalist working undercover to expose the duality of lives for Black folks "living in the shadow of Jim Crow."
Expected by her family to make an official "coming out" into society, Nelly has a list of social engagements a mile long to keep up with, but the reluctant debutante is more interested in her work and the meaning it holds. Her path first crosses with Jay Shorey — that teen boy from Alabama now all grown up — at the funeral, and the pair will soon take on a fight to expose the so-called "mayor" of Maxwell Street — head of an underground crime syndicate.
The Verdict
Book of the Month Club offered up two debut authors within its picks for February 2024, but Avery Cunningham's historical novel was an obvious choice. After all, this is the month set aside as Black History Month in America, and Cunningham offers us a chance to dive deep into a world of the Black elite in Prohibition-era Chicago.
A graduate of Chicago's DePaul University, Cunningham fixes her fictional lens on Chicago's South Side residents of 100 years ago, and we're treated to a novel that's as full of facts as it is flavor.
For those unfamiliar with Chicago's Bronzeville section, she offers up a chance to learn an important piece of American history not often taught in high school history. The story of Bronzeville is one of Black excellence and a place and period of upward mobility for Black Americans.
While racism remains an undercurrent in the novel — and that opening chapter is purposeful — Nelly and Jay's story is also one of wealth, intrigue and love.
Value — Was This Box Worth It?
This Book of the Month Club pick falls decidedly in the "yes, it was worth it" category.
Not only was The Mayor of Maxwell Street a chance to experience a debut author, it was also one of the meatiest hardcovers to land on my doorstep from Book of the Month so far. At 528 pages, Avery Cunningham's novel gives you plenty of good "curl up on the couch and read" time.
BOTM Club starts at $17.99, depending on your chosen subscription.
The Cost: $9.99 + free shipping (This price is only for your first month).
Value Breakdown: This box costs $9.99, but the book I chose will retail as hardcover for $21.23, which works out to a discount of about $11. (Remember...this is first month only). Even if you are looking at the $17.99 cost for one of the later months of your overall subscription, you're still saving $3.
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To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this book if you sign up today? Yes! But you will need to order it as an add-on.
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