On page 19 of Chasing The Scream, I write, about Billie Holiday: “Billie brought herself up on the streets of Baltimore, alone, defiant. It was the last city without a sewer system in the United States, and she spent her childhood among clouds of stinking smoke from all the burning shit.”

I have been contacted by a reader called Debrah Sambuco explaining that the second sentence there can’t be right. She wrote: “I am writing to tell you of an error in your otherwise very good and interesting book Chasing the Scream… The sewer system in Baltimore was built before Billie Holiday was born. She never lived in the city before it had a sewer system. Baltimore’s sewer system was begun after the Great Fire of 1904. By 1915, when Billie Holiday was born, it was already very extensive and nearing completion. Here is a pdf of a history of Baltimore’s sewer system from Waterfront.com: http://baltimorewaterfront.com/wp-con...

I also checked the … Read more