Wild Women and the Blues

Set in two timelines, the novel alternates between the story of a young chorus girl in Jazz Age Chicago and a grief-stricken graduate student who arrives nearly a century later to interview her.

In the present day, Sawyer Hayes, a graduate student pursuing a doctorate in film and media studies, visits the Bronzeville Senior Living Facility in Chicago to interview 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour. His documentary thesis centers on Oscar Micheaux, the legendary Black filmmaker, but his project stalled 15 months earlier when his sister, Azizi, was killed in a car crash that Sawyer was driving. In his grandmother's attic, Sawyer found photographs showing Honoree with Micheaux and other 1920s figures, along with a reel of film he sent to a restoration company. His grandmother, Margaret Hendrickson (formerly Maggie White), has been paying Honoree's expenses since 1985. At the facility, Lula Kent, a young nurse's assistant, warns Sawyer to treat Honoree with respect. Honoree refuses to cooperate unless Sawyer shares his own story first. The ghost of Azizi, whom Sawyer has been speaking to since before his arrival, appears beside the bed. Sawyer leaves for Paris to work on his father's documentary.

In October 1925, 19-year-old Honoree is a sharecropper's daughter from Baton Rouge who has spent three years dancing at Miss Hattie's Garden Cafe, a speakeasy near Chicago's stockyards. She endures the control of the cafe's owner, Archie Graves, who once struck her hard enough to crack a bone in her jaw. In the dressing room, she meets Bessie Palmer, a bruised 16-year-old recently hired by Archie, and helps conceal Bessie's injuries. That night, Honoree plans to slip away for an audition at the Dreamland Cafe, one of the most prestigious nightclubs in Chicago's Black entertainment district. Before she leaves, she spots Ezekiel Bailey, her childhood sweetheart from a prominent Black family who vanished three years earlier. Honoree recalls their night together on a rooftop, his proposal, and the morning she discovered his family had left Chicago overnight while her mother, Cleo, departed for Baton Rouge, leaving Honoree alone at 16. Ezekiel has returned but remains evasive, and Archie reveals that Ezekiel is his new business partner: a policy wheel operator running an illegal numbers gambling ring rather than the doctor he once planned to become.

As part of a deal with fellow chorus girl Trudy Lewis, Honoree must deliver a sealed envelope to a bartender named Houdini at the Dreamland. She wins a spot in the new vaudeville act, but alone in the cafe at five in the morning, she witnesses Tony Gallo, a white enforcer for Al Capone, shoot and bludgeon Houdini to death. She flees with the envelope, which contains 87 policy betting slips all bearing the same three numbers. She later discovers they are all winners, a fortune she cannot safely claim. The next morning, Ezekiel demands the envelope, revealing a trusted informant saw her at the scene. Honoree lies, and Ezekiel warns the killer will come for her, but she refuses to leave.

The Dreamland closes for a police investigation. When it reopens, Honoree befriends Lil Hardin Armstrong, who introduces her to Micheaux and other Jazz Age luminaries at house parties. Archie reveals he orchestrated Honoree's hiring through a deal with Mr. Buttons, the Dreamland's owner, but Ezekiel intervenes and frees her from Archie's hold. Meanwhile, Archie's volatile younger brother, Dewey Graves, has been buying bootleg whiskey outside Capone's network, endangering everyone. Honoree defuses a dangerous standoff between Ezekiel and Dewey. At the Bailey Brothers Auto Body Shop, Ezekiel reveals his family fled because his father, Titus Bailey, had run an insurance scam with Gallo. Bessie confesses to Honoree that she is pregnant by a man who beats her.

Sawyer returns from Paris and develops a rapport with Honoree over several visits. He confesses that he sees Azizi's ghost, and Honoree responds without surprise, saying she has ghosts of her own. She tells Sawyer about her father, who was struck by a car when she was a child, and how her mother blamed her for years. Their bond deepens, but Honoree erupts whenever Sawyer mentions a house in Baton Rouge that Maggie sold in 1990. When Sawyer calls Maggie, she confirms that Honoree Dalcour is her birth mother but insists the old woman was never truly a mother to her. Through Lula's aunt Deidre, Sawyer learns his father, Marvin, also visited Honoree twice. Marvin reveals that Honoree spoke of a family curse and that a 1938 deed for the Baton Rouge house named Bessie Palmer as the owner.

In 1925, Honoree performs her first Dreamland solo to acclaim but is terrified when Ezekiel seats her beside Gallo at his VIP table. On Christmas Eve, she rashly visits the Plantation Cafe, co-owned by Gallo and Capone. Gallo reveals he saw her the night of Houdini's murder and has known all along. Ezekiel arrives and leverages his knowledge of Gallo's unauthorized gambling to secure their exit. On Christmas Day, Honoree's tenement burns down, and she, Bessie, and Ezekiel's younger brother Jeremiah relocate to the Bailey house. Ezekiel confesses that Titus attacked his own family and tried to surrender his sons to Gallo as collateral; Ezekiel killed him in their defense, and Gallo covered up the death in exchange for a future debt. Honoree gives Trudy the envelope to deliver to Capone's rivals.

At Miss Hattie's, Dewey attacks Honoree in the basement, strangling and attempting to rape her. Bessie arrives and kills Dewey with a broken broom handle, revealing that Dewey, not Archie, had been beating and sexually abusing her and is the father of her unborn child. Ezekiel disposes of the body.

On New Year's Day 1926, Honoree and Bessie try to flee by train, but the plan collapses. Crazy Pete, the beloved barkeep, is found shot dead. When the train stalls, Bessie slips away to Miss Hattie's to confess to Dewey's killing. Honoree races after her and finds Archie aiming a tommy gun at Ezekiel while Jeremiah holds a pistol on Archie. Shooting erupts: Archie is killed, Ezekiel is critically wounded, and Jeremiah is hit but survives. Trudy provides a statement that clears Jeremiah.

The restoration company confirms Sawyer's film reel is a lost Micheaux work. Examining clear footage, Sawyer notices the dancer identified as Honoree has no burn scars on her arm, while another dancer, shorter and darker, does. He confronts the old woman, who confirms she was born Bessie Louise Palmer and assumed Honoree's name after the real Honoree left Chicago. Hospitalized and dying, Bessie reveals the aftermath: she, Jeremiah, and the wounded Ezekiel relocated to Baton Rouge, where Bessie gave birth to a daughter she named Margaret Rose. Bessie confesses she hated the child because Maggie reminded her of Dewey. Maggie eventually left, married, and severed ties for decades. When Sawyer calls Maggie again, she confirms Bessie is her mother but maintains Bessie was never truly a mother to her.

Bessie dies. Sawyer finishes his thesis, earns his doctorate, and his documentary is selected for the Santa Monica Film Festival. He reconnects with Lula, and Azizi's ghost no longer appears.

In an epilogue set in Paris in September 1945, the real Honoree has built a life abroad, running a jazz club in Montmartre called Danseur Noir Cafe. She reunited with Ezekiel, who found her through letters beginning in 1929, and they married in 1941. A young Black soldier named Norman White, sent by his aunt Cleo with a letter of reconciliation, visits the cafe. Norman reveals he has married Maggie, the daughter of the woman he knows as Honoree Bailey in Baton Rouge. The two women's divergent lives converge through the family they unknowingly share.