THE GREAT MRS. ELIAS

The story of a Black woman who became a millionaire a century ago.

This completes the author’s quintet of historical novels about what she calls “invisible” women of color whose significant stories have been erased. Hannah Elias certainly has a significant story. She was born Bessie Davis in 1865 to a struggling family in Philadelphia. In this fictional version of her life she was raped as a child, unjustly imprisoned for theft as a teen, and cast out by her family. She became a sex worker to survive and soon moved up to running bordellos. Moving to New York City, she cultivated upper-class admirers, a goal made easier by her ability to easily pass as White, and parlayed her success into a real estate empire. By the time she was in her 30s she was one of the richest Black people in the country but little known—she was careful to avoid scandal. That all blew up, however, when Cornelius Williams, who had been a tenant in one of her boardinghouses and suffered the delusion that they were lovers, shot and wounded Hannah at her mansion on Central Park West and shot to death city planner Andrew Green, known as the “Father of Greater New York” for his role in founding Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other landmarks. His death was an error: Williams mistook him for one of Hannah’s longtime millionaire lovers John Platt. But the murder, which opens the book, exposed the relationship between Hannah and Platt as well as Hannah’s wealth, leading to tabloid headlines and blackmail accusations that shook New York City’s upper crust. It’s a compelling story, based on what Chase-Riboud says in the acknowledgements is a long-lost trove of documents about Elias. But the novel, especially in its first half, slows the story down with prose that is often clunky and overladen with details, dialogue that sounds more like lecture than conversation, and much repetition. The last part of the book does build momentum, if the reader gets there.

A novel about a real-life madam-turned–real estate magnate stumbles on style.