Known to millions before her sixteenth birthday in 1900, Evelyn Nesbit was the most photographed woman of her era, an iconic figure who set the standard for female beauty. Women wanted to be her. Men just wanted her. When her life of fantasy became all too real, and her jealous millionaire husband, Harry K. Thaw, killed her lovercelebrity architect Stanford White, builder of the Washington Square Arch and much of New York Cityshe found herself at the center of the "Crime of the Century" and the popular courtroom drama that followeda scandal that signaled the beginning of a national obsession with youth, beauty, celebrity, and sex.

The story of Evelyn Nesbit is one of glamour, money, romance, sex, madness, and murder, and Paula Uruburu weaves all of these elements into an elegant narrativethat reads like the best fictiononly it's all true. American Eve goes far beyond just literary biography; it paints a picture of America as it crossed from the Victorian era into the modern, foreshadowing so much of our contemporary culture today.

--Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul

"By centering her book on the ever-fascinating figure of Evelyn Nesbitthe stunningly beautiful chorine whose sexual charisma still burns through the Victorian photographs that adorn the bookUruburu has produced not only a tour de force of historical crime writing and an illuminating social history but a rollicking piece of storytelling: a work that brings to life an entire glittering era while maintaining a breathless narrative pace."

--Harold Schecter, author of The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century

"Of all the famous beauties of a hundred years ago, Evelyn Nesbit is the only one who would still turn heads today. Paula Uruburu's triumph is to fix this very modern- looking girl in her proper time and place, and also to describe the New York of the early 1900s so vividly that we feel we, too, could be strolling towards the 21st Street apartment where the teen was seduced by Stanford White--or sitting in Madison Square Garden on the fatal evening that White was shot dead."

--Mike Dash, author of Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century

"Paula Uruburu has given life to the tragic American story of the poor, beautiful nymph whose fate is so often entangled with extreme wealth and the powerful man. Evelyn Nesbit is like a Dreiser heroineSister Carrie, Jenny Gerhardtthough hers is a true story, harrowing in this writer's hands."

--Martha McPhee, author of L'America and Gorgeous Lies

"In American Eve, a fascinating evocation of a woman and her times, Paula Uruburu does more than just tell the story of Evelyn Nesbit. Sex, money, scandal, celebrity, doom--the whole cocktail of America's obsessions is served up here in this intriguing, addictive book."

--Zachary Lazar, author of Sway

"Wonderfully absorbing . . . A lurid tabloid story of yore brought to fresh life and relevance with remarkable insight, verve and wisdom. Old New York is laid bare in all its decadence and the cult of pubescent beauty traced to its source, all with worldliness, wit, humor, compassion, and suspense. The result is a real page-turner."

--Philip Lopate, author of Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan and Writing New York

"Tragic now when a century ago it seemed merely scandalous, the story of Evelyn Nesbit is a gripping cautionary tale for those who believe Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are the first of their kind. How is it that after a century of feminism, young beautiful women still crash and burn for an eager public? Using newly available family sources, Paula Uruburu tells Evelyn Nesbit's story in all its darkness and terror."

--Honor Moore, author of The Bishop's Daughter

"In American Eve a beautiful young woman, a lecherous prince of New York, and an unstable husband show us how the national sport of media-fed scandal began. Before the story ends, one man is dead, another is locked away, and Paula Uruburu has given us a look at an age of excess that looks remarkably like our own. It is page turning history at its best."

--Michael D'Antonio, author of Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams