STRIP ALLEY - Orrie Hitt

 In the seedy part of town there's a series of strip clubs. For a girl like Lola Champ, with a perfect female body and one who enjoys being naked, stripping seems like the perfect job. But Lola's never been on stage, stripping for scores of men leering at her.

But not even a dame like Lola can just walk into a strip club and get a job. There's plenty of girls to go around. But at one of the seediest and lowest of the clubs, the owner gets a look at Lola and knows there's real potential.  He takes her on (in more ways than one) and connects her with one of the other strippers to show her the ropes. Soon enough, this dive strip club is seeing a big increase in business as word gets out about Lola's, er, charms.

But this is a cut-throat business.  The others girls are jealous of the attention Lola is getting, and the other strip clubs want her to appear on their stages. She's going to need to watch her back as closely as the men are watching her front!

As I first started exploring this world of 'sleaze' - sometimes called 'adult novels' or in today's parlance, erotica - of the 1950's and 60's, the author Orrie Hitt was one of the first names that popped up again and again.  Hitt wrote often (nearly 100 books?!) of strong women and the darkest, grittiest side of life. This was no exception.

It's still sleaze, meaning there's lots and lots of sex, described in great detail, with the barest of plots as an excuse to get from one sex scene to the other. But the plot at least feels real - there's motivation for the characters beyond just trying to get laid.

I think this quote from the book sums up the characters and the period mores nicely:

"Do you know how long a moth lives? The kind you see at night?"
"Not very long."
"No, but to the moth it’s a lifetime. Short, when we look at it. So is the life of the majority of strippers. Short. You have to grab the cash while it’s flying by you."

There's definitely a very dated feel to this, and the men are all macho and the women, even the strong ones, are still not much more than sex toys.

I look forward to trying a few more books by Orrie Hitt.

4 Guilty Pleasure stars.