The result of quietly padding the bar floors and hotel carpets of Manhattan in pursuit of the why of prostitution for a Daily News series, this introduces the casual reader to a field of more than casual interest. Jess Stearn found B-girls in West side bars, costly call-girls in East Side suites, pony girls and street walkers and incipient prostitutes, and pimps. From many strata of society, practising their trade in different surroundings for differing prices, they had in common their contempt for men and a will to ""get even"" with them, their potentiality as customers for Women's Court, their defiant misery in self-degrading and destructive circumstances. The interviews seem to illuminate more by personalizing the individuals involved in such a life rather than by penetrating underlying causes for following it, this despite the added notes of a psychiatrist. From the teen-ager growing up in the slums and getting into the business through narcotics- peddling boy friends- to the highly literate luxury-priced call girl keyed to the clash of meeting her father, a big ""John"", on a professional date, the girls stand alone -- and self condemned.