About the Book
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 fiance, 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 fiance 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 fiance 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. From the Hardcover edition.
Review :
"A high-heeled walk on the wild side, Tracy Quan's Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl is a nifty trick of a first novel, combining sexual slapstick with luxury-goods, hotel-lobby sociology, exposing female vanity and male self-delusion with equal aplomb. Juggling cell-phone calls and quirky clients, Quan's Nancy Chan is like a Henry Miller heroine with the meter running, bouncing from one trampoline event to another while always keeping an eye on the bottom line. What will shock many is not the explicit play-by-play action but the knockabout, offhand humor-that's what shocked people about Henry Miller, too. No artificial sweeteners here: Quan's adventures in the skin trade deliver a cocktail kick."
-James Wolcott, author of The Catsitters
"Nancy Chan is a working girl I can totally relate to, recognize-and imagine sharing my clients with. Addictive, entertaining, and fun to read, this book tells it like it is. Tracy Quan reveals trade secrets and shatters a lot of myths, while creating an accurate picture of what it's like to be a New York call girl at the turn of the millennium."
-Xaviera Hollander, author of The Happy Hooker
"If you want to know the secrets of the trade, pick this one up." --Jackie Collins
"New York's latest literary sensation" --"The Independent"
"Frank, fizzy, and not for the faint-hearted." --"Mail on Sunday"
"Her sex scenes are delightful" --"The Times" (London)
"A sassy read about a sparky New Yorker trying to juggle her professional and private life...a startling debut." --"The Mirror" "From the Trade Paperback edition."
" A high-heeled walk on the wild side, Tracy Quan' s Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl is a nifty trick of a first novel, combining sexual slapstick with luxury-goods, hotel-lobby sociology, exposing female vanity and male self-delusion with equal aplomb. Juggling cell-phone calls and quirky clients, Quan' s Nancy Chan is like a Henry Miller heroine with the meter running, bouncing from one trampoline event to another while always keeping an eye on the bottom line. What will shock many is not the explicit play-by-play action but the knockabout, offhand humor- that' s what shocked people about Henry Miller, too. No artificial sweeteners here: Quan' s adventures in the skin trade deliver a cocktail kick."
- James Wolcott, author of The Catsitters
" Nancy Chan is a working girl I can totally relate to, recognize- and imagine sharing my clients with. Addictive, entertaining, and fun to read, this book tells it like it is. Tracy Quan reveals trade secrets and shatters a lot of myths, while creating an accurate picture of what it' s like to be a New York call girl at the turn of the millennium."
- Xaviera Hollander, author of The Happy Hooker
" If you want to know the secrets of the trade, pick this one up." -- Jackie Collins
" New York's latest literary sensation" -- "The Independent"
" Frank, fizzy, and not for the faint-hearted." -- "Mail on Sunday"
" Her sex scenes are delightful" -- "The Times" (London)
" A sassy read about a sparky New Yorker trying to juggle her professional and private life...a startlingdebut." -- "The Mirror"
