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Rating: 
Summary: Muddle mess of meandering prose
Review: Help! This book is in desperate need of an editor! There's a story here that should be told but "I Was For Sale" is bogged down by the writing style of author Lisa B. Falour. I really wanted to like this book. I had hopes that it'd perhaps pick up where Shawna Keeney's I Was A Teenage Dominatrix (see CdC #11) left off. A former zinester and bondage model, Falour's life is rife with tawdry (and poignant) tales, yet Falour's writing often left me scratching my head, wondering to where she was going and from where she had come. Falour skips willy-nilly from decade to decade from paragraph to paragraph. I finally had to put the book down when I got to the first page of chapter four and found myself completely lost in the maze of Falour's life-a labyrinth that one would hope she'd navigate rather than compound. I valiantly struggled to pick up the thread that weaves Falour's tales together. I've known people who talk like Falour writes and I try to avoid getting into conversations with them. Four chapters may sound like a half-hearted effort, but reading Falour's work after proofreading CdC was driving me a bit bonkers. I itched for a pen to rewrite lines like, "I saw him in person recently and he looked great and seemed extremely fit. He didn't seem to be 82 years old at all-he seemed quite a bit younger." Perhaps a synonym (or two) for "seem" is in order. How about "appear"? A good thesaurus, a few infinitives, and a gerund or two might pep up Falour's writing. A muddled disappointment, I hope that Falour's publisher might consider a seriously rewritten second printing of "I Was For Sale" . And, for a book subtitled "Confessions of a Bondage Model," might I suggest that such an edition might sport a few pictures-racy or otherwise! (ISBN: 1840680539)
Rating:
Summary: Muddle mess of meandering prose
Review: Help! This book is in desperate need of an editor! There's a story here that should be told but "I Was For Sale" is bogged down by the writing style of author Lisa B. Falour. I really wanted to like this book. I had hopes that it'd perhaps pick up where Shawna Keeney's I Was A Teenage Dominatrix (see CdC #11) left off. A former zinester and bondage model, Falour's life is rife with tawdry (and poignant) tales, yet Falour's writing often left me scratching my head, wondering to where she was going and from where she had come. Falour skips willy-nilly from decade to decade from paragraph to paragraph. I finally had to put the book down when I got to the first page of chapter four and found myself completely lost in the maze of Falour's life-a labyrinth that one would hope she'd navigate rather than compound. I valiantly struggled to pick up the thread that weaves Falour's tales together. I've known people who talk like Falour writes and I try to avoid getting into conversations with them. Four chapters may sound like a half-hearted effort, but reading Falour's work after proofreading CdC was driving me a bit bonkers. I itched for a pen to rewrite lines like, "I saw him in person recently and he looked great and seemed extremely fit. He didn't seem to be 82 years old at all-he seemed quite a bit younger." Perhaps a synonym (or two) for "seem" is in order. How about "appear"? A good thesaurus, a few infinitives, and a gerund or two might pep up Falour's writing. A muddled disappointment, I hope that Falour's publisher might consider a seriously rewritten second printing of "I Was For Sale" . And, for a book subtitled "Confessions of a Bondage Model," might I suggest that such an edition might sport a few pictures-racy or otherwise! (ISBN: 1840680539)
Rating:
Summary: Bondage Would be Preferable
Review: Human sexuality is an interesting subject, especially the fringes of sexual behavior. Even more interesting are those who work in the sex industry, exploring their own sexuality and seeing others' sexuality up close and personal. So how could such a great subject matter yield such a bad book? Well, to start with the book is categorized by the publisher as "autobiography". I'm not sure if this really autobiographical, fiction, or some sort of "gonzo" blurring of the two. Despite the word "Confessions" in the title, the author reveals little of herself, her thoughts, her psyche. She recounts episodes of her work but never tells us how she came to be a bondage model or why. Did she already have an interest in the S&M scene? Did she like the work? Was this an expression of her sexuality or just a job? What did she think about her clients? The book is merely a collection of seemingly random anecdotes recounted with little passion or indication of the author's feelings about the events. There is no underlying theme and no particular order. One would expect better writing from an author with a post graduate degree and who has written for numerous publiations as indicateed in her biography in the "about the author" page in the front of the book. And this is problematic as well. I have never seen a page listing the authors accomplishments and life history in an autobiography, again leading me to belive that this book is at least as much fiction as fact. The purpose of an autobiography is to tell us about the subjects life, therefore an "about the author" page would be redundant. But the author doesn't really tell us much about her life, or reveal much about herself at all. She merely strings together tawdry stories about herself and others which generally raise more questions that never get answered. The sories often seem to begin in the middle and leave numerous loose ends at the conclusion. I have never heard of the publisher, Velvet Publications, but I assume they have editors on their staff. A good editing would have helped this book immensely. Even a mere chronological arrangement of events would have made it more readable. In short, I can name numerous books on this subject written by men and women who have worked in and/or lived the S&M lifestyle, and none with the educational or writing credentials of this author, that are more revealing of themselves, the S&M lifestyle and the S&M aspects of the sex industry. I suggest either Mistress Jacquelines "Whips and Kisses" or Shawna Kenney's "I Was a Teenage Domiatrix" as being far superior to this book.
Rating:
Summary: Bondage Would be Preferable
Review: Human sexuality is an interesting subject, especially the fringes of sexual behavior. Even more interesting are those who work in the sex industry, exploring their own sexuality and seeing others' sexuality up close and personal. So how could such a great subject matter yield such a bad book? Well, to start with the book is categorized by the publisher as "autobiography". I'm not sure if this really autobiographical, fiction, or some sort of "gonzo" blurring of the two. Despite the word "Confessions" in the title, the author reveals little of herself, her thoughts, her psyche. She recounts episodes of her work but never tells us how she came to be a bondage model or why. Did she already have an interest in the S&M scene? Did she like the work? Was this an expression of her sexuality or just a job? What did she think about her clients? The book is merely a collection of seemingly random anecdotes recounted with little passion or indication of the author's feelings about the events. There is no underlying theme and no particular order. One would expect better writing from an author with a post graduate degree and who has written for numerous publiations as indicateed in her biography in the "about the author" page in the front of the book. And this is problematic as well. I have never seen a page listing the authors accomplishments and life history in an autobiography, again leading me to belive that this book is at least as much fiction as fact. The purpose of an autobiography is to tell us about the subjects life, therefore an "about the author" page would be redundant. But the author doesn't really tell us much about her life, or reveal much about herself at all. She merely strings together tawdry stories about herself and others which generally raise more questions that never get answered. The sories often seem to begin in the middle and leave numerous loose ends at the conclusion. I have never heard of the publisher, Velvet Publications, but I assume they have editors on their staff. A good editing would have helped this book immensely. Even a mere chronological arrangement of events would have made it more readable. In short, I can name numerous books on this subject written by men and women who have worked in and/or lived the S&M lifestyle, and none with the educational or writing credentials of this author, that are more revealing of themselves, the S&M lifestyle and the S&M aspects of the sex industry. I suggest either Mistress Jacquelines "Whips and Kisses" or Shawna Kenney's "I Was a Teenage Domiatrix" as being far superior to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Memoir of an appalling and interesting time
Review: Lisa Falour is a former "sex worker" (the term hadn't yet been coined), a raconteur who is defiant and glib, jaded and heartbreakingly hopeful all at once. Her humor is deadpan. She has an astonishing story. Part of the surprise is that she is alive to tell it. This is a dead-on memoir that is informative, sometimes painful - and intended to inform but not to arouse. A cute, blond Midwesterner, Falour arrived in New York in the late 1970's (amidst the "smell of things falling apart"). Ambitious, not yet educated, and chronically short of money, she enrolled in a succession of colleges, art schools and, eventually, graduate programs. She also worked two jobs. At brokerage firms as a secretary or a research assistant, she wore good suits and heels. In the second job of prostitute and more - the locus of this story - Falour wore often not much more than the standard accoutrements of the sexual galaxy BDSM- and much higher heels. (Some of her johns preferred her in her office clothes - something she exploited, too.) You may well be appalled at the job description of "bondage model" - as well as the many other things Falour did for money. She was paid to endure pain, and to mete it out. Sometimes she enjoyed herself. She liked drugging and drinking, and did lots of it. The details of what she calls her "dirty little voyages" take up a lot of this book. She minimizes the psychic (if not physical) pain of that work by asserting that "the only difference at my secretarial jobs during the day was that I was wearing clothes while men (my bosses) humiliated me." With unconvincing insouciance Falour claims that the money drove her into it - but then, more convincingly, though not with much elaboration, she acknowledges that "low self-esteem" was motivation, too. She's impulsive and smart and self-destructive. She married three men, lived through a series of near-disasters, and she made a lot of friends, whose portraits she draws with wit and gentle humor. The story of many of the friendships' unraveling is one of the saddest parts of the book. This is a strange and disturbing memoir that is well worth reading. There's a portrait of a seamy underside of New York City in the late '70's and early 80's that's awfully well drawn. Readers repulsed by honest depictions of comparatively unconventional sexual acts or tolerance of unconventional behaviors might choose to skip this book. Despite Falour's claim that " at 41, my spirit is broken, I am alcoholic, and my bouts of depression are now lasting years at a time," without benefit of writing workshops or thousands of hours of psychotherapy - she has managed to succeed at telling an astonishing personal story.
Rating:
Summary: Memoir of an appalling and interesting time
Review: Lisa Falour is a former "sex worker" (the term hadn't yet been coined), a raconteur who is defiant and glib, jaded and heartbreakingly hopeful all at once. Her humor is deadpan. She has an astonishing story. Part of the surprise is that she is alive to tell it. This is a dead-on memoir that is informative, sometimes painful - and intended to inform but not to arouse. A cute, blond Midwesterner, Falour arrived in New York in the late 1970's (amidst the "smell of things falling apart"). Ambitious, not yet educated, and chronically short of money, she enrolled in a succession of colleges, art schools and, eventually, graduate programs. She also worked two jobs. At brokerage firms as a secretary or a research assistant, she wore good suits and heels. In the second job of prostitute and more - the locus of this story - Falour wore often not much more than the standard accoutrements of the sexual galaxy BDSM- and much higher heels. (Some of her johns preferred her in her office clothes - something she exploited, too.) You may well be appalled at the job description of "bondage model" - as well as the many other things Falour did for money. She was paid to endure pain, and to mete it out. Sometimes she enjoyed herself. She liked drugging and drinking, and did lots of it. The details of what she calls her "dirty little voyages" take up a lot of this book. She minimizes the psychic (if not physical) pain of that work by asserting that "the only difference at my secretarial jobs during the day was that I was wearing clothes while men (my bosses) humiliated me." With unconvincing insouciance Falour claims that the money drove her into it - but then, more convincingly, though not with much elaboration, she acknowledges that "low self-esteem" was motivation, too. She's impulsive and smart and self-destructive. She married three men, lived through a series of near-disasters, and she made a lot of friends, whose portraits she draws with wit and gentle humor. The story of many of the friendships' unraveling is one of the saddest parts of the book. This is a strange and disturbing memoir that is well worth reading. There's a portrait of a seamy underside of New York City in the late '70's and early 80's that's awfully well drawn. Readers repulsed by honest depictions of comparatively unconventional sexual acts or tolerance of unconventional behaviors might choose to skip this book. Despite Falour's claim that " at 41, my spirit is broken, I am alcoholic, and my bouts of depression are now lasting years at a time," without benefit of writing workshops or thousands of hours of psychotherapy - she has managed to succeed at telling an astonishing personal story.
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