Gramercy Park

About the Book

It was called La Belle Epoch – the Beautiful Age.  But for women at the turn-of-the-century, life was often anything but glamorous.  Gramercy Park takes us into the lives of a group of such women.  Living in a first-class parlor house, the “ladies” of Gramercy Park are able to give the appearance of propriety.  But the horrors of their sordid lifestyle threaten to disrupt the façade.

Lily St. Clair is a prostitute by choice, seeking out a life that affords her the freedom that society otherwise denies to women.  A former nursing student and daughter of a respectable Connecticut family, Lily hides her background from the other “boarders,” as she struggles to forge her way in a man’s world.  

Discovering that great social evils plague the city, Emily Greeley wants very much to rid New York of its vice.  But her husband, Dr. William Greeley, does not feel it suitable for a lady to involve herself in such crass causes.  Emily must hide her political activities from her husband, as a chance encounter leads her to the heart of the White Slavery issue itself.  

When Lily and Emily finally meet in Gramercy Park, the harsh realities of both their worlds come crashing in on them.

About the Author

Eileen Cushey is a Pennsylvanian author. She completed her graduate degree in American Studies from Penn State. As a Graduate Assistant in the Alice Marshall Collection of Women's History, she found herself drawn to the pieces of ephemera associated with the lives of women in Turn-of-the-Century New York City. Thus began her research into the Gilded Age. This eventually worked itself into her first historical novel, Gramercy Park. Ms. Cushey is currently continuing her literary pursuits and hopes to offer yet another piece of historical fiction.