One woman is willing to risk it all for the sake of all young women in Nancy Bernhard’s debut historical fiction novel set during the infamous reign of the Tammany Hall crime syndicate. The Double Standard Sporting House (Jan 20, 2026, She Writes Press) follows Nell “Doc” Hastings, a brothel owner who also runs a small free clinic for women. When a young woman enters her clinic bleeding and bruised, Nell discovers a sex ring selling virgin girls to the most prominent men in the city–and risks her entire business to bring them to justice.
In this interview, Nancy talks about what inspired the book and her interest in the story behind it. She shares the family story that led to her interest in what is referred to as a “fallen woman” and the truth behind it. Nancy also talks about the parallels between the setting of the book and today.
Given that this is your debut novel, I’d like to ask what got you into writing?
I trained as an historian and have written for decades, but I was always frustrated by the narrow conventions of academic writing. Plus, women’s stories are often hidden from recorded history, or seen through sexist lenses. I moved into historical fiction so I could tell the overlooked stories, to imagine how women would have told their own lives, and to shift those patriarchal lenses.
How did you come to know this topic and how did it become the setting for your book?
My very flamboyant grandmother once told me that her Aunt Beatrice was a madam. I wondered how a middle-class girl from a large, supportive family would have ended up in the sex trade. It turns out it wasn’t true. Beadie lived with a married man, and anyone living outside the boundaries of sexual convention was deemed a “fallen” woman. But I got interested in the question, and the answer turned out to be epidemic rape and seduction. I began to imagine a smart and capable girl who suffers an assault, and makes the most of her life on the far side of respectability. She finds greater power and independence in the demimonde than she would ever have been allowed in mainstream society.
What kind of research did you do and did it wind up changing the book?
I read about 100 books on the history of the sex trade, the Tammany Hall political machine and 19th century reproductive medicine. I decided to set the book in 1868 based on one half-sentence in Marilyn Wood Hill’s book “Their Sisters’ Keepers: Prostitution in New York City, 1830-1870,” which said that in the 1870s, the Tammany Hall political machine gained control of the trade, “thus ending a brief but unique era when prostitution was managed predominantly by females.” I tried to find out more about that takeover but never found very much. So I imagined how the syndicate would have brutalized these women, and how they might have fought back.
Did you find any parallels between the events of the book and today?
A breathtakingly corrupt political machine that traffics young girls? That’s timely, and in fact a perennial tragedy. Women coming together to tell their stories and to heal in community certainly has more traction now than in 1868, but I believe they have helped one another heal in similar ways throughout history, even if we have no records of it.
How did you wind up working with She Writes Press and how would you describe the experience?
The gatekeepers of traditional publishing treat aspiring authors like dirt, and I finally decided to stop begging. One day I did a web search for something like “feminist critique of publishing industry” and the first five hits were for She Writes publisher Brooke Warner. The press is very professional, and the community of authors is invaluable. We trade information and support, which you won’t find at a Big Five publisher. Not everyone can afford a hybrid, but I’m very grateful for the respect and control She Writes gives its authors.
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