THE BUTCHER SHOP GIRL

A Canadian exotic dancer offers a fast-paced account of her early years.

Debut author Kissel-Verrier’s journey begins innocuously with a childhood spent in a small town in Alberta, Canada, at her paternal Grandpa Lloyd’s farm. After her parents’ bitter divorce and her father’s bankruptcy, she was put to work at her abusive mother Francoise’s butcher shop and meatpacking plant as a middle schooler. She also had to deal with her insular French Catholic community’s judgment of her family. As a teenager, she craved adventure and autonomy, so she quit an unpaid engineering apprenticeship to pursue a part-time paid gig at a Fort Kent exotic-dancing establishment, which eventually took her from the bar to the stage. Her memoir explores female sexuality and destigmatizes sex work even as it soberly notes the prevalence of crime, drug use, and alcoholism in the exotic-dancing world. As the author tells of performing at remote Alberta outposts and in big-city Toronto and flashy Texas joints, Kissel-Verrier reflects on masculine ego, feminine beauty, and personal and financial independence; eventually, she decided to leave the industry and to reenroll in college. Having sworn to never be a “normie,” Kissel-Verrier proudly reveals her “weird sparkly and sequined roots” in this account. Her chapters have playful titles and epigraphs from such disparate figures as the musician Beck and the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Although the author shows herself to have a highly spontaneous streak, her narration tempers the instantaneity that one might expect from a writer who references journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Instead, she sets many dramatic moments into a psychological frame of trauma or immaturity, sometimes heavy-handedly. Her most visceral, affecting prose, though, describes sensory activation: the overwhelming feeling of a deep sea dive or the superheated water of a steam-generating drum.

An often gripping read about misfits, money, and motivation.