Outrageous: The Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume One: Rise to Riches
by Neal Katz
Publication Date: October 1, 2015
Top Reads Publishing
Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook; 344 Pages
Series: The Victoria Woodhull Saga (Book 1)
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis: Historical fictionalized account of Victoria Woodhull’s rise to presidential candidate and wealth, coming from poverty and abuse.
What compels a woman and her youngest sister to overcome abject poverty and violent abuse to grow up to defy convention and obliterate every barrier to become the first women to own and operate a Wall Street brokerage firm and publish their own newspaper?
How did Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838 – 1927) become the first woman invited to speak to the United State Congress, and then the first female to run for president. What made Tennessee Celeste Claflin (1845 – 1923) so beguiling that the richest man in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt, fell completely in love with her?
What caused the sisters to live out their long lives as royalty and peerage in Europe. Victoria living as landed gentry outside of London, and Tennessee in a huge castle like a queen? Why aren’t these empowered and independent women iconic in our culture?
Volume One of The Victoria Woodhull Saga tells the poignant, lascivious, and compelling inside story of how the sisters worked closely with Cornelius Vanderbilt, who at age 74 fell in love with the beguiling 24-year old Tennessee. Victoria provided the titan of industry “Inside Her Information” gathered through the soiled sisterhood, the ladies of the evening working at the top seven brothels servicing the rich and famous of New York City.
This relationship resulted in the great lion of industry having his last public roar as together they manipulated the financial markets and created the impending collapse of the U.S. economy in the gold scandal of 1869. To avert the crash, President Ulysses S. Grant provides the richest man in America insider information on the gold market and telegrams Vanderbilt that his railroad company is “Too Big To Fail!” Vanderbilt was proclaimed “The Savior of the American Economy” for intervening in a crisis he helped create.
View Victorian America through the eyes and thoughts of one of its leading heroines., Victoria Woodhull. Watch as the infighting and elitism of the earliest suffrage women denigrating, castigating, and denouncing other passionate suffrage rights women delayed woman suffrage and equal legal standing for five decades. Learn wonderful anecdotes of the origins of products and phrases used today. Learn the story of Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the most popular man in America, who transformed Christianity from his father’s “fire and brimstone” theology to one of a compassionate and loving Jesus, who will redeem all who turn to salvation with complete confession of their sins. The reverend’s personal life did not imitate his lofty and popular theology of his weekly sermons at Plymouth Church. He was a notorious womanizer, often bedding, and sometimes impregnating the wives, sisters, and daughters of his most ardent trackers and deacons of the church.
Written in the first person from Victoria’s viewpoint, Neal Katz weaves a compelling page-turning story that cleverly unfolds history while providing a wonderfully entertaining ride. Katz has pledged one half of book sale proceeds to charities dedicating to the empowerment and sustainable economic improvement of women, especially single mothers.
Excerpt:
From Chapter 22, "Torn Assunder"Before I realized it, I was standing and everyone was looking at me. I looked around and peered into the surprised, curious faces in the room. I tried to say something, but I was overwhelmed by the realization that I had never spoken my thoughts, or feelings, amidst such august people. I tasted bile at the back of my throat and felt my heart racing.
I made a choice. Instead of getting lost in my apprehensions, I focused on the roiling anger in my gut and the pain I felt in my womb. I wanted my thoughts spoken. I wanted to be heard. I turned to Mr. Frederick Douglass and addressed him.
“Good Mr. Douglass, you are a man of high education and broad experience.” I stopped and look around the room and nodded at each one present. “In fact, all of you are.” …
“I must ask you if there is anything that I could do or say that would fully convince you that I completely understand and appreciate your circumstance?
“Were I to tell you that I can fully imagine the pain and suffering of the lash whipping on my back and tearing my skin away, would it assuage your pain? No, sir, I think not!
“What if I were to proclaim, with God as my witness, that I see all the ugly, craven, and disgusting indignity, opprobrium, injustice, and inhumanity with which my race has treated your race? Would that make your circumstance any less intolerable? Respectfully, no, sir. I think not! ...
“With your incredible ability at persuasion, could you convince me that you know what it feels like to be raped by your father at age nine, sold into prostitution to feed your family and later by your husband? To be repeatedly used and abused as an object created solely for the pleasure of men? No, sir! I think not!” …
“Mr. Douglass, I stand before you both naked and unabashed as a child of God to tell you openly and without hesitation, that I will never be able to fully understand your plight as a Negro male. It is not within my powers.” I looked directly into the eyes of the powerful advocate before me. I appealed to his humanity and begged of him. “I ask you, most educated of men, will you not confess, with the same innocence and revealed truth, that you will never understand the circumstance of being a woman?”
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Praise
“Victoria Woodhull is one of the most fascinating but forgotten characters in American history. She deserves to be better known by anyone who cares about gender equality and the ongoing fight to make America a more tolerant and just country–kudos to Neal Katz for bringing her story to life for a new generation of readers.” -Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
“I can’t believe this is Neal’s first book. Incredibly well written, this is an important work. I see a National bestseller and a long running series.” -Victor Villasenor, National bestselling author of Rain of Gold,Three time Pulitzer Prize nominee, and author of Revenge of a Catholic Schoolboy
About the Author
Neal Katz is a semi-retired, serial entrepreneur, CEO with a passion for women rights. He lives a life based on self-awareness and Love. He practices Yoga, meditates daily, has taught A Course in Miracles, produced Oregon wines, enjoys being a gourmet chef, recites Vedic sutras, and writes his own inspirational poetry.
The saga of Victoria Woodhull appeals to Neal, as it serves three purposes. First, the story provokes public awareness of the historical and continuing denigration and subjugation of gender prejudice. Second, the tale exposes the historical basis for the manipulation of the free markets of stocks, bonds and commodities. Third, the story shows how existing financial and political power structures used prison and seizure of assets to prevent innovation and social change. Victoria Woodhull overcame all these obstacles in a remarkable life.
Neal chose to write in first person using Victoria s words, thoughts, and point of view to tell the tale, inviting the reader to see through her eyes. The style is magic realism along the lines of Allende, Marquez, and Kathleen McGowan (The Magdalene Trilogy). This is an expression of the HeForShe solidarity movement for gender equality championed by Emma Watson, and Neal proudly proclaims himself a male feminist!
Neal has pledged fifty percent (50%) of his author’s royalties from book sales and all ancillary revenues, including foreign print distribution and Hollywood rights to a foundation formed in tribute to Victoria Woodhull and her passion for woman rights. The foundation will promote and prove programs for the empowerment and sustainable economic improvement of women, especially single mothers.For more information visit http://outrageousthebook.com/. You can also follow the author on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
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