WORKING: My Life As a Prostitute

by Dolores with Linda Lee French ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 3, 1988

Another happy hooker tells all. Unlike Xavier Hollander, however, French--who's an activist for prostitutes' rights as well as a hooker--festoons her X-rated memoir with tinselly sociological pretensions. Among the many French thanks here--including co-author Linda Lee (novel: One by One, 1977; nonfiction: Out of Wedlock, 1982)--is Realist editor Paul Krassner, for ""keeping by notes and my mind together through the years of research I did on prostitution."" Research? For ten years--as she describes in deep blue detail--French has been a professional prostitute, plying her trade from Atlanta (where she began, as relief from a dull office job) to Puerto Rico (in a series of cheap, assembly-line brothels) to N.Y.C. (where she worked under the gilded aegis of Sydney Biddle Barrows, the ""Mayflower Madam""). With that vast experience, it's no surprise that French's ""research"" yields a bevy of lurid findings. Among them: ""Italians are by far the best lovers in the world. . .maybe it's eating Italian food""; ""When a Japanese man fucked, he didn't just go in, out, in, out. That wasn't the Asian way""; ""[Puerto Ricans] would bite me everywhere. . .They were like big, strong wood ticks""; and so on. All this illuminated via red-light anecdotes ranging from tales of regular pay-for-hire sex to S-M to sex with women, and all spliced by childhood memories (""Did it all start with I Love Lucy?,"" French wonders, as she recalls how, at age five, she was smitten with a glamorous whore depicted on that show). French winds up with looks at prostitution in the age of AIDS (she blames johns for giving it to whores, not vice versa); at the perennial tango of cops and whores; and at her tireless lobbying--on the Donahue Show and other forums--for prostitutes' rights. With its six-page appendix advising prostitutes of their legal rights, this smoothly written book serves as an excellent handbook for aspiring hookers. Others will either be fascinated by French's unusually fresh and thorough look at The Life--or turned off by her weird mix of political axe-grinding and pornography.

Pub Date: Aug. 3, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION