A Dangerous Business A Novel

Jane Smiley

eBook - 2022

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of A Thousand Acres: An amazing “mash-up of a Western, a serial-killer mystery and a feminist-inflected tale of life in a bordello” (The Washington Post). In 1850s Gold Rush California two young prostitutes, best friends Eliza and Jean, attempt to find their way in a lawless town on the fringes of the Wild West—a bewitching combination of beauty and danger—as what will become the Civil War looms on the horizon. “Everyone knows that this is a dangerous business, but between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise..."Monterey, 1851. Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight, Eliza Ripple has been working in a brothel.... It seems like a better life, at least at first. The madam, Mrs. Parks, is kind, the men are (relatively)... more