Whore

A breathless (heavily autobiographical) novelistic account of the life of a young woman who sells her body for a living, Whore is a searing look at the world's oldest profession and a confessional in the tradition of Sylvia Plath. "Cynthia," as the nameless narrator calls herself professionally, is a French-Canadian Catholic from the sticks who escapes her strict upbringing and stifling parents to move to Montreal as soon as she is old enough. One day she answers the ad of an escort agency and quickly becomes compelled by her strange new calling. Her visitors include an Orthodox Jew cheating on his piety, a boorish Muslim with a deformed arm, a never-ending parade of businessmen and fathers, and a young man whose youth and fitness disturbs her more than any of the rest of them. Cynthia never glamorizes her life--contempt, anger, and resignation ring out from the pages--but her descriptions are engrossing and her prose incisive. Nelly Arcan delivers an unyielding, poetic, and deeply personal account of one whore's life.