Broadway Butterfly
Vivian Gordon, The Lady Gangster of Jazz Age New York

NOT THE BOOK I WAS LOOKING FOR While not inherently a bad book - except for some flashes of casual sexism and misogyny - it was just not the book I felt I was promised. This is not a book about Vivian Gordon. She is hardly even a main character. This is a book about the world she lived and worked in.......more

If you like books dealing with figures from the days of Prohibition/Great Depression, this is the book for you. However, it is not a straightforward biography about Vivian Gordon. Rather, it's a bio on her and all the people in her orbit, no matter how tenuous the connection may be. While I like the......more

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.5 of 5 1920's and 30's, New York. A truly exciting era in an exciting city. The jazz age and Prohibition, gangsters and molls. But where there's gangsters and mobsters and speakeasies and prostitution and the heavy flow of illegal b......more

I have heard of the Broadway Butterfly Vivian Gordon in the past, but not with as much detail as this book provided. We learned about Vivian’s childhood and her rise to fame and fortune and then her demise. There is much detail into the various corrupt gangsters that Vivian worked with during her Ne......more

'The image of the Jazz Age popularized by The Great Gatsby, the good times, the parties, the speakeasies and the easy money created an elusive Nirvana...' Benita Franklin aka Vivian Gordan was drawn to the bright lights of New York City like so many young women seeking fame. They were often branded w......more