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Stripper Lessons
From the author of Leaving Las Vegas, "a sensitive and understated novel" about a lonely law clerk yearning for human connection (Booklist).
Here is the simple life of Carroll, a middle-aged, unmarried, friendless man whose only joy is watching beautiful women dance. Terribly shy and unable to socialize with the people around him, Carroll's fascination with the women at his favorite strip club, Indiscretions, is totally innocent. He finds solace in the routine, the rules, and the predictability of the action. But when his desire for a particular dancer takes him one step too far, his entire life threatens to crumble.
Since his debut novel Leaving Los Vegas, which was made into the film starring Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue, John O'Brien has been one of the great literary voices of American loners and outcasts. Perhaps his most interior and intense novel, Stripper Lessons is a powerful story of one man's obsessive search to belong.
Here is the simple life of Carroll, a middle-aged, unmarried, friendless man whose only joy is watching beautiful women dance. Terribly shy and unable to socialize with the people around him, Carroll's fascination with the women at his favorite strip club, Indiscretions, is totally innocent. He finds solace in the routine, the rules, and the predictability of the action. But when his desire for a particular dancer takes him one step too far, his entire life threatens to crumble.
Since his debut novel Leaving Los Vegas, which was made into the film starring Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue, John O'Brien has been one of the great literary voices of American loners and outcasts. Perhaps his most interior and intense novel, Stripper Lessons is a powerful story of one man's obsessive search to belong.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1997
15 people are currently reading
342 people want to read
About the author
John O'Brien
5 books96 followersJohn O'Brien's first novel Leaving Las Vegas was published in 1990 and made into a film of the same name in 1995.
His other three works were published posthumously.
[Source]
John O'Brien was born in 1960 and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved to Los Angeles in 1982 with his then-wife Lisa. During his lifetime, he was a busboy, file clerk, and coffee roaster, but writing was his true calling. He committed suicide in April 1994 at age thirty-three. His published fiction includes "Leaving Las Vegas," "The Assault on Tony's," and "Stripper Lessons."
"John O'Brien was a stunningly talented writer who created poetry from the most squalid materials."--Jay McInerney, author of "Bright Lights, Big City"
His other three works were published posthumously.
[Source]
John O'Brien was born in 1960 and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved to Los Angeles in 1982 with his then-wife Lisa. During his lifetime, he was a busboy, file clerk, and coffee roaster, but writing was his true calling. He committed suicide in April 1994 at age thirty-three. His published fiction includes "Leaving Las Vegas," "The Assault on Tony's," and "Stripper Lessons."
"John O'Brien was a stunningly talented writer who created poetry from the most squalid materials."--Jay McInerney, author of "Bright Lights, Big City"
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 8, 2020
"the screen sizzles, and the phone girls, their studs, and the piano man are laid to waste like so much coagulated bacon grease".
Stripper Lessons by John O'Brien.
Do not make the mistake of not taking this book seriously because of the title. Its indeed a masterpiece.
This book was written by John O'Brien who also wrote "Leaving Las Vegas". It is a deeply moving and extremely dark read that would absolute ly fall into the category of "Literary Fiction" and I'd encourage anyone to read it.
Basically this is a slice of life in the lives of two Souls adrift. Carroll is a shy and somewhat child like man, a file clerk whose life is pretty empty. He lacks social skills and confidence and is almost hopelessly naive.
Stevie is a stripper. Tough and unafraid, she uses her body to get by. She works in a club that Carroll wanders into.
When Carroll sees Stevie on stage, he falls violently in love..or lust I should say. Desperate to talk to her, he pays for a dance.
This book is not about murder or stalking or any of that. It is about loneliness. And emptiness. And what one will do just to get through each day.
What is appealing about Carroll is that he isn't a bad guy. He is actually pretty decent. This book is a character study into his brain where a sad and timid man dwells but we feel for him. Carroll is at times almost frighteningly naive like when he sees a commercial for a video for the "shy man" and the shy man's guide to dating. A sexy woman is advertised and when Carroll calls to order, he cannot understand why the woman does not answer the phone.
Stevie herself is a stripper with soul. She is sort of fond of Carroll or becomes that way. She has a boyfriend who does not give two shits about her but she sees no way out. Her story is poignant too as it shows a beautiful and smart lady who is so used to relying on her looks to get her through, that she does not seem to be aware there are any other options.
O'Brien wrote in such a visceral way. You can feel the atmosphere and the characters in your gut.
I first chose to read this book because I had seen "Leaving Las Vegas" and loved it. I felt so much sympathy toward Carroll. This is a strange dark little book consisting almost entirely of dialogue. I loved everything about it.
SPOILERS:
I read a review somewhere, maybe here, that someone did not get the ending. Neither did I. And there seem to be different interpretations of that end. It did seem unfinished somehow. I'd have liked to know if he met her for coffee and if she showed up. I think the implication was that he did not. That he had no interest in her beyond the idealization of her stage persona. But I could be wrong on that.
In any event, it was a really powerful read. For fans of Literary Fiction and books that will be sure to leave you thinking..look no further.
Stripper Lessons by John O'Brien.
Do not make the mistake of not taking this book seriously because of the title. Its indeed a masterpiece.
This book was written by John O'Brien who also wrote "Leaving Las Vegas". It is a deeply moving and extremely dark read that would absolute ly fall into the category of "Literary Fiction" and I'd encourage anyone to read it.
Basically this is a slice of life in the lives of two Souls adrift. Carroll is a shy and somewhat child like man, a file clerk whose life is pretty empty. He lacks social skills and confidence and is almost hopelessly naive.
Stevie is a stripper. Tough and unafraid, she uses her body to get by. She works in a club that Carroll wanders into.
When Carroll sees Stevie on stage, he falls violently in love..or lust I should say. Desperate to talk to her, he pays for a dance.
This book is not about murder or stalking or any of that. It is about loneliness. And emptiness. And what one will do just to get through each day.
What is appealing about Carroll is that he isn't a bad guy. He is actually pretty decent. This book is a character study into his brain where a sad and timid man dwells but we feel for him. Carroll is at times almost frighteningly naive like when he sees a commercial for a video for the "shy man" and the shy man's guide to dating. A sexy woman is advertised and when Carroll calls to order, he cannot understand why the woman does not answer the phone.
Stevie herself is a stripper with soul. She is sort of fond of Carroll or becomes that way. She has a boyfriend who does not give two shits about her but she sees no way out. Her story is poignant too as it shows a beautiful and smart lady who is so used to relying on her looks to get her through, that she does not seem to be aware there are any other options.
O'Brien wrote in such a visceral way. You can feel the atmosphere and the characters in your gut.
I first chose to read this book because I had seen "Leaving Las Vegas" and loved it. I felt so much sympathy toward Carroll. This is a strange dark little book consisting almost entirely of dialogue. I loved everything about it.
SPOILERS:
I read a review somewhere, maybe here, that someone did not get the ending. Neither did I. And there seem to be different interpretations of that end. It did seem unfinished somehow. I'd have liked to know if he met her for coffee and if she showed up. I think the implication was that he did not. That he had no interest in her beyond the idealization of her stage persona. But I could be wrong on that.
In any event, it was a really powerful read. For fans of Literary Fiction and books that will be sure to leave you thinking..look no further.
May 23, 2008
Compulsively readable novel by the author of "Leaving Las Vegas" which was even more harrowing than the movie upon which it was based, O'Brien describes the terrifying banal life of that saddest of sad cases, the strip club customer who thinks that a dancer really likes him because she allows him to stuff twenty dollar bills into her thong. If O'Brien had lived a couple of decades longer he would have been considered a major American novelist.
March 5, 2008
Almost seems fated to appeal to a certain audience - lonely urban based white guys - like the way Pavement is a band only urban white guys can really get into.
An LA novel, a book about the west that should get mentioned right alongside The Day of the Locust or your favorite John Fante or Bukowski or Bruce Wagner and so on.
It's the absolute shits O'Brien couldn't maintain the desire to remain in this world.
An LA novel, a book about the west that should get mentioned right alongside The Day of the Locust or your favorite John Fante or Bukowski or Bruce Wagner and so on.
It's the absolute shits O'Brien couldn't maintain the desire to remain in this world.
August 29, 2019
Imagine Willy Loman as a file clerk ("senior" file clerk, as the protagonist emphasizes) whose only joy, or at least meaning, turns round the fulcrum of a seedy L.A. strip club named "Sensations."
Carroll, the protagonist of John O'Brien's "Stripper Lessons," is the kind of man who tends to fade into the woodwork wherever he goes. In a strip club setting, he's not the lecherous, leering type who paws the women, violates all the house rules, and demands to be treated like God for holding out a single dollar bill to the stage's railing ("Dollar Generals," as one dancing girl I know calls them). Carroll is, rather, the guy who takes at face value that a stripper's name is her actual, real-life name, and that, alas, a romance or at least a relationship of some meaning can grow from paying women $20 per song to get naked in front of men, who, if they're lucky, catch the scent of the woman's shampooed hair and maybe get grazed on the cheek with a nipple.
You don't need me to tell you this is a depressing novel. You probably also don't need me to tell you that its author is more famous for his book "Leaving Las Vegas," which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Nicholas Cage who (rightly I think) got the Best Actor nod, while his partner in crime, Elisabeth Shue, was sorely overlooked for her contribution (which, in its way, I think made the movie memorable even more than Cage's staggering antics as a clammy-skinned lush on the brink of death.)
What needs saying is that this is an urgent kind of novel, an ugly and unstinting look at people the way they really are, and how they really think and behave most often. I'm not a fan of Mr. O'Brien's style, the stream-of-consciousness run-on sentences and parentheticals and sentence fragments that show perhaps a little too much time in the secondary vocation of screenwriter, but that's all besides the point. This was, as the writer John Fante once said of one of his novels, a boil that needed to be lanced. Carroll's sad saga needed to be written and I had to read it.
Rest in peace to the author, who took his life a couple weeks after his novel was optioned by Hollywood. Best of luck to the men and women looking for love, or something more ill-defined, and not finding it. Highest recommendation for the book itself.
Carroll, the protagonist of John O'Brien's "Stripper Lessons," is the kind of man who tends to fade into the woodwork wherever he goes. In a strip club setting, he's not the lecherous, leering type who paws the women, violates all the house rules, and demands to be treated like God for holding out a single dollar bill to the stage's railing ("Dollar Generals," as one dancing girl I know calls them). Carroll is, rather, the guy who takes at face value that a stripper's name is her actual, real-life name, and that, alas, a romance or at least a relationship of some meaning can grow from paying women $20 per song to get naked in front of men, who, if they're lucky, catch the scent of the woman's shampooed hair and maybe get grazed on the cheek with a nipple.
You don't need me to tell you this is a depressing novel. You probably also don't need me to tell you that its author is more famous for his book "Leaving Las Vegas," which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Nicholas Cage who (rightly I think) got the Best Actor nod, while his partner in crime, Elisabeth Shue, was sorely overlooked for her contribution (which, in its way, I think made the movie memorable even more than Cage's staggering antics as a clammy-skinned lush on the brink of death.)
What needs saying is that this is an urgent kind of novel, an ugly and unstinting look at people the way they really are, and how they really think and behave most often. I'm not a fan of Mr. O'Brien's style, the stream-of-consciousness run-on sentences and parentheticals and sentence fragments that show perhaps a little too much time in the secondary vocation of screenwriter, but that's all besides the point. This was, as the writer John Fante once said of one of his novels, a boil that needed to be lanced. Carroll's sad saga needed to be written and I had to read it.
Rest in peace to the author, who took his life a couple weeks after his novel was optioned by Hollywood. Best of luck to the men and women looking for love, or something more ill-defined, and not finding it. Highest recommendation for the book itself.
December 8, 2012
Have you ever felt alone?
Stripper Lessons provides a window into the life of a lonely man. Carroll is the guy who watches the world turn from the shadows, the guy you walk past at the mall, never knowing he was ever there. But that guy was there, watching you walk past.
The story is personal and the plot only occurs over a few days. I wondered why O’Brien chose this part of Carroll’s seemingly repetitious life. But then Stevie dances her way into his world. O’Brien describes the breathtaking blond with some of the most vivid prose I’ve ever read. I found myself re-reading some of these passages, mesmerized as if I were beholding an artist’s painting or listening to a classical masterpiece. O’Brien gives us very little backstory on these characters, but I can appreciate the “here and now” with Carroll and Stevie’s interactions. I wanted this guy to find what he was lacking. He tried everything, an infomercial video for “shy men,” flashy clothes with “curlicues,” and even alcohol (Carroll’s naivety with booze is the opposite of Ben’s overindulgence in Leaving Las Vegas). But even though Carroll alienates coworkers, barmaids, and strippers over the course of the book, he gains a deeper understanding of himself and an acceptance of who he is, and who he is not.
You always glean new words from O’Brien’s works, and this fact, in my opinion, adds another layer to his stories. As I read Strippers Lessons, I became emotionally involved with Carroll and feared for him as the end neared. In the few days we spend with him in the story, it seemed his subconscious prompted him to grow, and made him become not the guy watching from the shadows, bottling his emotions up, but the guy shouting, tossing and shattering said bottle onto the ground. And I particularly liked how Carroll ran up to Stevie in the parking lot outside of Indiscretions. He was no longer afraid to be a lonely man.
Read Leaving Las Vegas for a view into a character losing his way; read Stripper Lessons for a view into a character finding his way. -Jonathan Sturak 12/08/2012
Stripper Lessons provides a window into the life of a lonely man. Carroll is the guy who watches the world turn from the shadows, the guy you walk past at the mall, never knowing he was ever there. But that guy was there, watching you walk past.
The story is personal and the plot only occurs over a few days. I wondered why O’Brien chose this part of Carroll’s seemingly repetitious life. But then Stevie dances her way into his world. O’Brien describes the breathtaking blond with some of the most vivid prose I’ve ever read. I found myself re-reading some of these passages, mesmerized as if I were beholding an artist’s painting or listening to a classical masterpiece. O’Brien gives us very little backstory on these characters, but I can appreciate the “here and now” with Carroll and Stevie’s interactions. I wanted this guy to find what he was lacking. He tried everything, an infomercial video for “shy men,” flashy clothes with “curlicues,” and even alcohol (Carroll’s naivety with booze is the opposite of Ben’s overindulgence in Leaving Las Vegas). But even though Carroll alienates coworkers, barmaids, and strippers over the course of the book, he gains a deeper understanding of himself and an acceptance of who he is, and who he is not.
You always glean new words from O’Brien’s works, and this fact, in my opinion, adds another layer to his stories. As I read Strippers Lessons, I became emotionally involved with Carroll and feared for him as the end neared. In the few days we spend with him in the story, it seemed his subconscious prompted him to grow, and made him become not the guy watching from the shadows, bottling his emotions up, but the guy shouting, tossing and shattering said bottle onto the ground. And I particularly liked how Carroll ran up to Stevie in the parking lot outside of Indiscretions. He was no longer afraid to be a lonely man.
Read Leaving Las Vegas for a view into a character losing his way; read Stripper Lessons for a view into a character finding his way. -Jonathan Sturak 12/08/2012
Want to read
April 11, 2010I can't bring myself to finish this novel right now as it's the last one he wrote that I have. It's neurotic but somehow I feel if I finish it then he'll fade to a distant memory.
Read
July 29, 2011What is incredible about this book is that it is truly a love story. Like Leaving Las Vegas, a love story about two completed non-standard, non-hollywood characters. A geek and a stripper. To see the view he had of what love could be but to know the demons he fought every day, just makes you think.
February 10, 2014
A man trying to figure out his lonely life. The writing is so descriptive that it simply must be read to be understood. The lines regarding the wait outside of a restaurant are currently my favorite written lines..possibly ever. O'Brien's characters stay with you long after the words have been read.
August 13, 2025
2,5 stars. Not a lot actually happens in this book—it is primarily the musings of a fairly pathetic guy as he hangs out in a strip club that he goes to every day. Overall I found the book rather boring and frustrating to read.
January 23, 2018
Think of it as The Old Man and The Sea... in a Strip Club. A challenging read (a lonely man works up the courage to talk to a stripper and confront his boss about a missing file at work -- the end) the brilliance, and its power, are all in the details. Likely a piece O'Brien would have preferred to have spent longer developing, it never-the-less shows just how brilliant a writer he was, and how sorely missed his voice is in modern literature.
November 10, 2018
Loneliness and delusion take center stage in a novel that purposely leaves you feeling a bit awkward and uncomfortable as you walk in Carroll's shoes.
September 4, 2018
Beautifully written, sad, and oddly relatable. Experimental at times but impossible to put down. Definitely a recommended read.
March 21, 2019
What an odd novel. Depressing, introspective book about a shy, boring office worker who finds some joy in life visiting strip clubs.
March 26, 2021
Kind of like a freeform thought collection of an insecure man and the people he interacts with.
December 21, 2020
If you’re ever curious what a socially awkward man who is completely alone thinks and worries about this book is a accurate representation.
books-i-started-but-never-finished
February 5, 2021DNF-ed at 17%.
January 1, 2022
O'Brien's fluid and introspective writing style captures social anxiety in a way that is authentic and evocative. He really is a maestro when it comes to writing about alienation, emotional insecurity, desperation and how all of these forces manifest in dingy nightlife settings where the broken come to escape and forget themselves. In reference to this dingy nightlife setting and atmosphere the chapters are titled along the lines of ThursdayFriday, FridaySaturday, since most of the action is taking place in that dark hinterland between the end of one day and the start of another, those early hours where midnight and all its delightful discontents leak over and then eventually start to dissipate as the sun comes up.
We are immersed into his narrator's pitiable projections and delusions, his trepidatious longings, his struggles with intimacy, the intangibility of his desires (i.e. the file he can never find, the beautiful woman he can never touch) his sense of ennui, the hollowness of his bullshit job, the ugliness of the urban sprawl and consumerism that surrounds him, his unrelenting isolation, his sense of shame, his mute fantasies, his fixations on routine.
Obrien's style is subtle and effective: he makes good use of perspective shifts (often employing a back and forth rhythm) a suitably mundane plot, run on sentences, a clever use of brackets to further enforce a sense of introversion. Furthermore, he often uses short sentences when interactions are occurring, and long descriptive sentences when un-spoken/internal observations are occurring - giving the text an engaging pace and furthering this sense of people struggling to verbally communicate and express their feelings to each other.
It is a shame he took his life so young, I'd love to see how he would have written about OnlyFans and modern parasocial phenomenon that likewise exists in that same sex work space: that ever growing space where lonely and often damaged people (predominately young men) are somehow finding genuine intimacy in relationships that are ultimately transactional and fabricated, relationships where the power dynamics constantly get blurred, relationships that are simulacrum of meaningful connection, digital relationships that are a level removed from even the intimacy of a lap dance (which in itself is a level removed from genuine intimacy and authenticity).
The ending feels a little abrupt and undercooked (perhaps because the book was published posthumously) but on the other hand I think the abruptness furthers the realism and provides us with a glimpse that allows us to imagine our own conclusions. The happy part of it definitely feels earned and not too sentimental. Carroll is getting what he desired, A chance for genuine connection, but we're left a little unsure whether he will take it. This connection, it's more platonic than romantic thankfully, since the stripper and her customer falling in love could feel very trite and unbelievable. O'Brien definitely has a knack for taking stories/scenarios that could feel very hacky (the destructive drunk and the hooker with the heart of gold in his most famous novel Leaving Las Vegas being another key example) and making them feel real, pathetic (but in a heartfelt way) and full of edge.
Speaking of the stripper, I would have liked to have spent a bit more time in Stevie's perspective. The stuff we get is good but she could have done with a bit more development and a bit more backstory. she only has to be enigmatic when we are in Carrol's perspective early on; the book already has some good moments where Carrol's fantasises are contrasted with reality, where we cut back and forth from his and Stevie's perspectives in real time, and more of these would have been appreciated. Speaking of these shifts, sometimes other characters perspectives are involved in the back and forth perspective jumps inside the strip club and this head-hopping can occasionally be slightly disorientating.
If you like Bukowski, David Foster Wallace, Henry Miller, Keroauc, Palahniuk, Sallinger or Bellow you will like this.
(it is funny to think that the man who wrote this novel and leaving las vegas was a staff writer on Rugrats at one point)
We are immersed into his narrator's pitiable projections and delusions, his trepidatious longings, his struggles with intimacy, the intangibility of his desires (i.e. the file he can never find, the beautiful woman he can never touch) his sense of ennui, the hollowness of his bullshit job, the ugliness of the urban sprawl and consumerism that surrounds him, his unrelenting isolation, his sense of shame, his mute fantasies, his fixations on routine.
Obrien's style is subtle and effective: he makes good use of perspective shifts (often employing a back and forth rhythm) a suitably mundane plot, run on sentences, a clever use of brackets to further enforce a sense of introversion. Furthermore, he often uses short sentences when interactions are occurring, and long descriptive sentences when un-spoken/internal observations are occurring - giving the text an engaging pace and furthering this sense of people struggling to verbally communicate and express their feelings to each other.
It is a shame he took his life so young, I'd love to see how he would have written about OnlyFans and modern parasocial phenomenon that likewise exists in that same sex work space: that ever growing space where lonely and often damaged people (predominately young men) are somehow finding genuine intimacy in relationships that are ultimately transactional and fabricated, relationships where the power dynamics constantly get blurred, relationships that are simulacrum of meaningful connection, digital relationships that are a level removed from even the intimacy of a lap dance (which in itself is a level removed from genuine intimacy and authenticity).
The ending feels a little abrupt and undercooked (perhaps because the book was published posthumously) but on the other hand I think the abruptness furthers the realism and provides us with a glimpse that allows us to imagine our own conclusions. The happy part of it definitely feels earned and not too sentimental. Carroll is getting what he desired, A chance for genuine connection, but we're left a little unsure whether he will take it. This connection, it's more platonic than romantic thankfully, since the stripper and her customer falling in love could feel very trite and unbelievable. O'Brien definitely has a knack for taking stories/scenarios that could feel very hacky (the destructive drunk and the hooker with the heart of gold in his most famous novel Leaving Las Vegas being another key example) and making them feel real, pathetic (but in a heartfelt way) and full of edge.
Speaking of the stripper, I would have liked to have spent a bit more time in Stevie's perspective. The stuff we get is good but she could have done with a bit more development and a bit more backstory. she only has to be enigmatic when we are in Carrol's perspective early on; the book already has some good moments where Carrol's fantasises are contrasted with reality, where we cut back and forth from his and Stevie's perspectives in real time, and more of these would have been appreciated. Speaking of these shifts, sometimes other characters perspectives are involved in the back and forth perspective jumps inside the strip club and this head-hopping can occasionally be slightly disorientating.
If you like Bukowski, David Foster Wallace, Henry Miller, Keroauc, Palahniuk, Sallinger or Bellow you will like this.
(it is funny to think that the man who wrote this novel and leaving las vegas was a staff writer on Rugrats at one point)
March 20, 2023
I consider "Leaving Las Vegas" John O'Brien's magnum opus, though this novel is a good complement. While his Vegas novel and "The Assault on Tony's" are explorations of alcoholism and its intertwining with alienation and impending doom, "Stripper Lessons" is a meditation on loneliness and the need for a human connection on an uncharacteristically sober level.
Carroll is a naive middle-aged man who visits the local LA strip club, Indiscretions, as a regular who sees himself as someone above the other regulars, a perceptive observer who finds more meaning here than the average customer. Sadly, he thinks all the strippers' names are real and yearns in futility for a fantastical connection with these women, imagining their interior lives behind the curtain, all while remaining solitary and agonizingly shy—until a new stripper and source of obsession, Stevie, comes along and inadvertently makes things complicated.
It's a strong novel rich with O'Brien's signature voice, albeit generally more accessible prose-wise than his other books, particularly "The Assault on Tony's." Speaking of the latter, I would've loved to have seen a final draft of "The Assault" that didn't require his sister's hand in completing, but considering it was likely intended as O'Brien's true suicide note over "Leaving Las Vegas" based on the fact he succumbed to suicide while finishing it, we'll never see that, and he may not have even wanted us to see what was published in the first place.
"Stripper Lessons" speaks to the pain of wanting to belong while being unable to, but Carroll notably doesn't seem to feel much pain in his solitude, even if he contemplates it at times. I mean, the guy buys an industrial fan identical to the one that a stripper interacted with one evening at Indiscretions, as though he feels only worthy enough of coming into contact with the women there vicariously through the objects they touch.
Carroll spends his nights focusing on the dynamics of Indiscretions while seeking a lost file at work during the day as a lowly and lonesome file clerk at a law firm. He also wanders the streets of LA in the mornings sometimes, shopping for clothes out of impulse or trying (unsuccessfully, to my amusement) his hand at drinking—ever-curious and craving experience but utterly without it because of his timidity. He's really an intriguing contrast to O'Brien's other characters who are steeped in experience and weary because of it. And yet it's when Carroll finally tries to change that lack of tangible experience that things seem to fall apart for him in rapid succession.
There are some beautiful passages that you can always expect from O'Brien's work in here. However, I didn't feel quite the tether I did with "Leaving Las Vegas" or even "The Assault on Tony's." I haven't read "Better," the last of O'Brien's four novels to be published and the third to be published posthumously, but I'm immediately onto it now.
Also, I'm annoyed that Goodreads includes Maureen O'Brien as a co-author. She's a worthwhile writer in her own right based on my limited research, but Erin O'Brien is John's sister and the one who helped complete this novel along with "The Assault on Tony's." Erin deserves as much recognition as her brother here, and I don't know who's responsible for that error, but I hope it's fixed.
Carroll is a naive middle-aged man who visits the local LA strip club, Indiscretions, as a regular who sees himself as someone above the other regulars, a perceptive observer who finds more meaning here than the average customer. Sadly, he thinks all the strippers' names are real and yearns in futility for a fantastical connection with these women, imagining their interior lives behind the curtain, all while remaining solitary and agonizingly shy—until a new stripper and source of obsession, Stevie, comes along and inadvertently makes things complicated.
It's a strong novel rich with O'Brien's signature voice, albeit generally more accessible prose-wise than his other books, particularly "The Assault on Tony's." Speaking of the latter, I would've loved to have seen a final draft of "The Assault" that didn't require his sister's hand in completing, but considering it was likely intended as O'Brien's true suicide note over "Leaving Las Vegas" based on the fact he succumbed to suicide while finishing it, we'll never see that, and he may not have even wanted us to see what was published in the first place.
"Stripper Lessons" speaks to the pain of wanting to belong while being unable to, but Carroll notably doesn't seem to feel much pain in his solitude, even if he contemplates it at times. I mean, the guy buys an industrial fan identical to the one that a stripper interacted with one evening at Indiscretions, as though he feels only worthy enough of coming into contact with the women there vicariously through the objects they touch.
Carroll spends his nights focusing on the dynamics of Indiscretions while seeking a lost file at work during the day as a lowly and lonesome file clerk at a law firm. He also wanders the streets of LA in the mornings sometimes, shopping for clothes out of impulse or trying (unsuccessfully, to my amusement) his hand at drinking—ever-curious and craving experience but utterly without it because of his timidity. He's really an intriguing contrast to O'Brien's other characters who are steeped in experience and weary because of it. And yet it's when Carroll finally tries to change that lack of tangible experience that things seem to fall apart for him in rapid succession.
There are some beautiful passages that you can always expect from O'Brien's work in here. However, I didn't feel quite the tether I did with "Leaving Las Vegas" or even "The Assault on Tony's." I haven't read "Better," the last of O'Brien's four novels to be published and the third to be published posthumously, but I'm immediately onto it now.
Also, I'm annoyed that Goodreads includes Maureen O'Brien as a co-author. She's a worthwhile writer in her own right based on my limited research, but Erin O'Brien is John's sister and the one who helped complete this novel along with "The Assault on Tony's." Erin deserves as much recognition as her brother here, and I don't know who's responsible for that error, but I hope it's fixed.
December 26, 2022
I decided to read it after being immensely impressed by movie Leaving Las Vegas based on the novel of this author. I have to admit, just dozens of pages into it and I already don't like it. It feels like it's written by a drunk person which might be the case. Anyway, I'll try to push through it but I suspect it may not be for me. It seems to be targeting specific audience - lonely urban based white guys :)
UPD: Incoherent writing. Sorry, I couldn't finish it.
UPD: Incoherent writing. Sorry, I couldn't finish it.
May 8, 2021
About a lonely man who suffers from social fears he visits a local gentleman's club to gawk. He sees a new dancer and is interested. A secondary story about attempts to locate a supposedly important missing file at work is a bit mind-numbing. Adult content. Occasionally well-written/quality word usage.
December 13, 2025
john o'brien is a mystery to me. he writes love stories in tragedy and solitude that are unmatched. leaving las vegas and stripper lessons are such great works that likely wont get the respect they deserve, but in a way i think that's fitting... they are lonesome work meant to be enjoyed by loners. god rest his soul
November 18, 2021
(2.5 Stars)
February 12, 2025
This book is one I will read again and again. The writing is truly captivating as you are literally inside Carroll’s mind in a unique way. You’re privy to all of his obsessive thoughts, anxious tangents and his painfully innocent yet charged interactions with Stevie. O’Brien leaves you basking in the ethereal glow of a love story like no other. Deeply psychological and strangely moving, Stripper Lessons is honestly one of my favorite reads to date.
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