Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl
A Novel
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
This is the diary of Nancy Chan, turn-of-the-millennium call girl, who lives and works on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Although she’s in her thirties, she’s at the top of her career–a better twenty-five-year-old today than when she was twenty-five. Most of her regulars don’t realize how long she’s been working. Her new fiancé, Matt, an up-and-coming M.B.A. on Wall Street, does know her age and how long she’s been working but not what she does for a living. And at least for the time being, Nancy wants to keep it that way.
Nancy is full of contradictory desires. She frequently has to choose between making love and making money. On good days, she gets to do both. Surrounded by devoted, wealthy, and powerful johns, some of whom want more than just sex, and caught between two complicated call girl friends who, shall we say, make her life more interesting than it really needs to be–not to mention an unwitting fiancé who has started to apartment hunt and arrange a wedding–Nancy navigates the tricky currents of the world’s oldest profession. With one foot in the bedrooms of her rich and demanding clients and one in the straight world of her fiancé and his family, Nancy demonstrates, in her inimitable fashion, that if you know the dance, you can keep those two worlds from colliding. At least for a while.
Based on the highly successful Salon.com column “Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl,” this wonderfully intelligent, sexually frank, rollicking novel gives us fresh insight into the machinations and politics of being an expensive call girl in the modern world. Tracy Quan pulls no punches, gives no apologies, and has written one of the best and most honest books yet on the topic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In timely step with stories glorifying characters created for video games, Quan's semi-autobiographical novel takes readers by the hand (and various other appendages) at the tail end of call girl Nancy Chan's career. Chan (whom Quan created for her Salon online column) is a "successful" (read: expensive) prostitute who spends more time listing her favorite clothes, restaurants and cosmetic tips than even Bret Easton Ellis did in American Psycho. In between $400-per-hour quickies at exclusive hotels, Nancy and her happy hooker pals Jasmine and Allison attend sex-industry activist meetings and debate the sinister reappearance of Jack, a former john who now appears to be obsessed with Allison. Nancy whines about this and her deepening relationship with her commitment-minded boyfriend to her shrink, also revealing how she plunged into prostitution as a teen. The novel has neither a substantial plot (Nancy dithering over whether to marry her dream boyfriend and get out of the life) nor sex appeal: Nancy's descriptions of her sensual encounters, be they professional or personal, are about as erotic as a stereo instruction manual ("always do a few extra Kegels afterwards"). Fans of Quan's online column may enjoy the continuation of Nancy's X-rated soap opera, but first-time readers may be put off by her snobbishness.
Customer Reviews
Great Read!
This book is wonderful. The way it reads sort of reminds you of an episode of Sex and the City but it has a lot more depth without all the fluff of a television series. The ending leaves a lot to be desired but it leaves nothing truly unanswered. A great "pick me up" read, it's sure to inspire laughs. Definitely not a children's book though.