Ebook: Rough Amusements: The True Story of A'Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance's Down-Low Culture

When A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 after a midnight snack of lobster and chocolate cake washed down with champagne, it marked the end of one of the most striking social careers in New York's history. The daughter of rags-to-riches multi-millionaire Madame C.J. Walker (the washerwoman who marketed the most successful straightening technique for African American hair), A'Lelia was America's first black poor little rich girl, using her inheritance to throw elaborate, celebrity-packed parties in her Westchester Mansion and her 136th Street would-be salon, 'Dark Tower'. In Rough Amusements, third in Bloomsbury's Urban Historicals series, Neihart takes us into the heart of A'Lelia's world-gay Harlem in the 1920s. In tracing its cultural antecedents, he delves into the sexual subculture of nineteenth-century New York, exploring mixed-race prostitution; the bachelorization of New York society; French Balls ("the most sophisticated forum for testing the boundaries of urban sexual behavior"); and The Slide (New York's most depraved nineteenth-century bar). Using A'Lelia's lavish parties as a jumping-off point, Neihart traces the line connecting Davy Crockett's world without women to Walt Whitman's boundless love of beautiful men to A'Lelia's cultivation of the racial, social, and sexual risk that defined the Harlem Renaissance. Ben Neihart is the author of the novels Hey, Joe and Burning Girl. His writing has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Travel & Leisure, The Baltimore Sun, and Book Forum. He lives in Brooklyn. Author photo: Frank Ockenfels Praise for Hey, Joe 'A touching, even soothing affirmation of the magic wisdom of youth.'-The New York Times Book Review 'A feast of vibrant imagery and spicy dialogue against a mellow backdrop of a sleepy summer evening in New Orleans.'-The Washington Post Praise for Burning Girl 'Neihart sets this story up nicely, drawing fresh, vigorous charac From acclaimed novelist Ben Neihart, a vibrant portrait of gay Harlem's most memorable diva: A'Lelia Walker.