Jo Allison
AUTHOR
Storied and Scandalous St. Louis
In early 2020, the editors at Globe Pequot Press, the trade imprint of Rowman and Littlefield, found the Julia Nye Mystery series and my history website, 1910-stlouis-by-jallison.com. That led the editors to invite me to write the next book in their Storied and Scandalous series, the one on St. Louis. The result is out as of October 2021: Storied and Scandalous St. Louis: A History of Breweries, Baseball, Prejudice, and Protest.
The book is a romp through St. Louis history from its founding in 1763 to the mid-Twentieth Century. There are the obvious scandals ranging from the first families' extramarital affairs to governmental debacles. There are stories of social, racial, and environmental injustice. There are events and people for whom "storied" is an understatement, including the woman who took dictation from a ouija board spirit for years and the youth whose tale was the inspiration for The Exorcist. And, of course, there's the World's Fair of 1904, baseball, beer—all the essential St. Louis stories.
And how about that photo on the cover? It's special to me because it's the photo I found years ago (courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society) to describe Weider's Beer Garden. That's the background for an important scene in the first Julia Nye book, The Good Old Summertime.
You can find Storied and Scandalous St. Louis almost anywhere: on all the book-selling websites, including Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, as well as in St. Louis bookstores.