MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – Avery Cunningham, a Jackson, Tennessee, native and now Memphis resident, kicked off her national book tour at Novel bookstore in Memphis on January 30, 2024, for her debut novel entitled: The Mayor Of Maxwell Street.
The book, a work of historical fiction and romance, is already garnering rave reviews and critical acclaim—which is why this week’s 5 Star Story features the book and inspiration behind it.
The Roaring ‘20s at first glance seems glitzy and glamorous! But underneath — especially in cities like Chicago — the reality was oftentimes gritty and dangerous.
“The 1920′s was such a pivotal time in American history. So, much of how the rest of the century really progressed came out of the 1920s,” explained Memphian and author Avery Cunningham.
And that’s the world in which she set her debut novel — an epic love story.
“So, The Mayor of Maxwell Street is a work of adult historical fiction about an ambitious Black debutante who enlists the help of a low-level speakeasy manager to identify the head of an underground crime syndicate in prohibition-era Chicago,” she added.
Critics call The Mayor of Maxwell Street “bold, gorgeous and deeply moving,” a triumphant “tale of intrigue, racial tension and class warfare.”
“I truly tried to write something that has an element of suspense and intrigue,” Cunningham said. “I wanted to honor all of the old mobster and gangster and 1920s media that I love and I adore.”
We caught up with Cunningham at Novel bookstore ahead of her first book signing. Many of the titles on these shelves, like The Warmth Of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson—about the Great Migration of Blacks out of the South—served as inspiration in Cunningham’s carefully crafted new page-turner.
“And her text was really a foundational element to give me some sense of where the mindset of these characters were, the realities of the conversations and interactions outside of the mere minutiae of what they’re wearing, what they were seeing, what they were touching, what they were feeling,” described Cunningham.
The protagonist in The Mayor of Maxwell Street is Nelly, based in part on one of Cunningham’s friends, and this line from The Great Gatsby: “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
“Nelly is born into incredible wealth and prestige,” Cunningham said. “She’s part of a ruling class, so to speak, but she’s new, she’s still an outsider. When she enters this world she’s viewed with so much suspicion and judgement. And even on the other side, this more gritty underbelly of Chicago that she tries to break into, she wants to understand it, she wants to be a part of it, she wants to report on it, but she’s also coming from a place of privilege and her bias leaks into her interactions with all these individuals.”
Cunningham crafted her characters in a way that she believes Black characters are rarely portrayed in fiction.
“Black Americans, as characters, we never get to see them have this range of choices. It always comes down to survival. It always comes down safety, being able to see a Black American who can view this world from a place of privilege, while still suffering under oppression— it’s just kind of a delicious spectrum for me,” Cunningham said.
A complexity explored through issues of love, class, even colorism which is the discrimination of darker skin tones. Nelly’s love interest in the novel – Jay Shorey (aka Jimmy “Blue Eyes”) was inspired by a literary theory that the title character in The Great Gatsby could be read as a non-white man passing for white.
“By the end, it’s really up to the reader to decide who he is or has he created an entirely new reality for him, or is he truly just a reflection of just what you want to see in him, as he describes himself to Nellie,” detailed Cunningham.
With The Mayor Of Maxwell Street now released to the masses, Cunningham hopes her debut novel not only thrills readers, but also inspires them to examine their own worlds, past and present, through a new lens.
“What I often say is wealth may not save you, that the right name, the right ambition, the right family, the right love even, cannot save you from the greater challenges — the greater systemic challenges that affect all of our lives. But this is really an opportunity I feel for the readers to understand the realities of the 1920s to where it’s more than just Gatsby and clothes and parties. That all of these, all of this glitter came with a cost,” she elaborated.
If you would like to know about other stops or dates for Avery Cunningham’s national book tour, or to keep up with any of her future projects, you can check her out on Instagram and TikTok: @averywritesbigbooks; or on Facebook: Avery Cunningham Author.
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