The Story of Chicago May

Outlaw, showgirl, confidence trickster, thief and occasional prostitute, red-haired May Duignan was, according to legend, 'The Queen of the Underworld'. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from rural Ireland to America. The extraordinary life of crime that followed would take her from Chicago to the rip-roaring Tenderloin districts of New York, from London to Paris, front bordello to jail. But her tale has remained little known, until now. Here gifted memoirist Nuala O'Faolain reaches across the decades to re-tell the incredible story of an independent and unrepentant woman: one who remained an outsider all her life, yet could still find herself, after everything, transformed by love...