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Highways and Dancehalls
This is a startling novel - as much for the power and beauty of the writing as for its vivid, searing tale of life on the road as a stripper in Canada.
Sarah is the product of a university family that blew angrily apart and the survivor of a childhood disease that meant lonely years spent in the grip of an insensitive medical establishment. Now, scarred in more ways than one, she is a seventeen-year-old high school dropout trying to make a living in the recession. Prospects are dim, and soon she is "Tabitha," heading out on the circuit of motels and strip-bars through the mining towns and suburbs of a seemingly bucolic West Coast.
On-stage, dressed in elaborate costumes, she offers a vision of a sex and beauty. Off-stage, she tries to befriend the bikers and strippers and populate her life on the road, but friendships are fleeting when home is a Greyhound bus or a room behind a neon sign on the highway.
Diana Atkinson paints a poignant, darkly humorous portrait of the reality behind voyeurism and desire. Delving into the shadowy moments of sex and survival, her work flashes with loss and beauty and a true empathy for those who live on the margins.
Sarah is the product of a university family that blew angrily apart and the survivor of a childhood disease that meant lonely years spent in the grip of an insensitive medical establishment. Now, scarred in more ways than one, she is a seventeen-year-old high school dropout trying to make a living in the recession. Prospects are dim, and soon she is "Tabitha," heading out on the circuit of motels and strip-bars through the mining towns and suburbs of a seemingly bucolic West Coast.
On-stage, dressed in elaborate costumes, she offers a vision of a sex and beauty. Off-stage, she tries to befriend the bikers and strippers and populate her life on the road, but friendships are fleeting when home is a Greyhound bus or a room behind a neon sign on the highway.
Diana Atkinson paints a poignant, darkly humorous portrait of the reality behind voyeurism and desire. Delving into the shadowy moments of sex and survival, her work flashes with loss and beauty and a true empathy for those who live on the margins.
240 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 19, 2014
Another book that I don't know how to review. I just didn't like it very much. Incredibly smart girl (for which the only proof is that she keeps telling us so), scarred from a childhood illness and operation, whose father left her family for inadequately explained reasons, therefore decides that she needs to be a stripper.
It just doesn't seem to have anything of consequence to say about any of those things. Being a stripper is tawdry and difficult? Doing drugs is bad? (The main character entirely stays away from hard drugs and having sex, other than with the loser with whom she's in a long-term relationship.) Being ill as a child will mess you up? Having your father leave will mess you up?
And maybe it's that - the book kept telling me she was messed up, but I never really believed it, just as I never really believed she was secretly really smart. I never got to know who she was, even though I was reading her diary.
I think the author was going for edgy, but I got opaque. Detached. Maybe that's what she was going for.
I wasn't upset by the book's content, I just didn't feel like she actually explained particularly well why these particular confluence of factors made this young woman who she was. It was more like she pointed out a bunch of factors. (Factors! See!) And then expected that to be enough in the way of character development, without really figuring out how these things might fit together.
Also, why save what the childhood illness was as a "reveal" until the end? It was actually fairly obvious, and not knowing really doesn't add any mystique. It didn't add any level of comprehension or surprise or depth. If you aren't going to achieve any of those things, walking through the book singing "I've got a secret illness in my past" at the top of your lungs is pointless.
It just doesn't seem to have anything of consequence to say about any of those things. Being a stripper is tawdry and difficult? Doing drugs is bad? (The main character entirely stays away from hard drugs and having sex, other than with the loser with whom she's in a long-term relationship.) Being ill as a child will mess you up? Having your father leave will mess you up?
And maybe it's that - the book kept telling me she was messed up, but I never really believed it, just as I never really believed she was secretly really smart. I never got to know who she was, even though I was reading her diary.
I think the author was going for edgy, but I got opaque. Detached. Maybe that's what she was going for.
I wasn't upset by the book's content, I just didn't feel like she actually explained particularly well why these particular confluence of factors made this young woman who she was. It was more like she pointed out a bunch of factors. (Factors! See!) And then expected that to be enough in the way of character development, without really figuring out how these things might fit together.
Also, why save what the childhood illness was as a "reveal" until the end? It was actually fairly obvious, and not knowing really doesn't add any mystique. It didn't add any level of comprehension or surprise or depth. If you aren't going to achieve any of those things, walking through the book singing "I've got a secret illness in my past" at the top of your lungs is pointless.
July 19, 2013
The beginning was a bit trashy and I was just about to put it away when part two appeared. Part two is very moving with less trash and more writing someone could actually enjoy. If it weren't for part two this book would've gotten 1 star from me.
December 12, 2019
Nápad vlastně skvělý, deník striptérky, která projíždí Státy po štacích a předkládá čtenáři svoje "na cestě". Potkává různé souputnice-tanečnice i diváky, růzorodé figurky, které se jí mihnou životem. A semtam vzpomene na svoje dětství poznamenané nemocí. Potud fajn, zpracování ale bohužel pokulhává. Zprvu ještě dobré, ale pak začne být chvílemi až zmatené, jak autorka různě poskakuje hrdinčinými myšlenkami. Jak kdyby nezredigovaný deník, kdy se tok myšlenek ubírá různými prameny na všechny strany a nedrží se v jednom korytě. Postav je na tak malém prostoru (i když logicky) hodně moc a když se některá z nich vrátí, tápala jsem zpět, kdo to vlastně je, protože se mi sléval se zbytkem. Možná jsem čekala údernější osudy jednotlivých figur, takové, které se člověku zaryjí do hlavy. Ale ty jsem tam bohužel nenašla. Z mého hlediska škoda, že se forma tak rozutekla a že jsem nedostala větší ránu lopatou po hlavě. Myslím, že na knížku brzy zapomenu.
March 28, 2019
I honestly did not enjoy this book. It was definitely entertaining, and the protagonist wasn't unlikable, but like another reviewer said: it's trashy. Not because the main character is a stripper, but because there is absolutely no meaning. This was read for a philosophy class as analysis on the lack of close personal relationships that Sarah has. From her explanation of her past and her illness and her parents who left her to live alone in a hospital, it's not hard to imagine why she would feel detached to people. She does find it difficult to make friends throughout the book. But that doesn't make for an interesting character. Rather boring.
October 23, 2010
Compelling,gritty,sad. Have looked for it since.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews