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A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America
Miramax
February 2003
On Sale: February 19, 2003
336 pages
ISBN: 0786886757
EAN: 9780786886753
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Non-Fiction Biography
The ultimate road trip; a daring and disarmingly honest
odyssey across America with an ex-stripper who dusts off her
dancing shoes for a farewell tour. Lily Burana had been working as a journalist for five years
when, on a cross-country assignment, she meets a cowboy in
Cheyenne, Wyoming. They fall in love quickly, and in short
order he proposes to her. Her cowboy doesn't flinch when she
tells him about her past, but as the reality of the
engagement sets in, Burana realizes that she can't settle
down until she comes to terms with the business of
stripping--the controversial but exhilarating crucible in
which she came of age. She packs up a hairpiece, hairspray,
Lucite platforms, garters, neon thongs, and body glitter,
and enrolls in a stripping academy to perfect her routine.
Zigzagging across America from the topflight gentlemen's
clubs of Dallas to the blue-collar go-go bars of New Jersey,
from Anchorage to Tijuana, Las Vegas to Los Angeles, she
even competes in the Miss Topless Wyoming competition. Along
the way, she seeks out a host of colorful women who share
with her the unwritten history of striptease: an over-looked
and under-recorded American art form. And what she
discovers--about the business, about the culture of strip
clubs, and about herself--is truly remarkable. While on the road, she recalls her start in the peep shows
of Times Square and her groundbreaking legal battle for
strippers' rights, waged against one of the most notorious
strip club owners in the country. With the benefit of her
independence and experience, she's shocked to learn how
much, yet how little, the world of striptease has changed.
Insightful and reflective, Burana describes the clubs and
bars, the patrons and other dancers in striking detail, and
takes us into the nitty-gritty of a dancer's life, bringing
to light the variety of techniques and tricks of the trade. Burana writes with immediacy and candor; hard-won wisdom and
hard-bitten humor; a novelist's voice and a journalist's
eye. Strip City is a shrewd take, free of illusion, on the
darker, seamier side of America. She effortlessly conveys
the atmosphere of a seedy strip joint; the exhilaration of a
dancer on stage when she gets into her zone; and ultimately
the complex emotional repercussions that arise when a woman
takes off her clothes for money.
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