Highways and Dancehalls

by Diana Atkinson

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031215139X
• ISBN13: 9780312151393
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful First Novel

Diana Atkinson's Highways and Dancehalls is a poignant, enthralling coming-of-age drama taking place in strip joints across British Columbia. Diana gradually reveals the emotional and phyical abuse that drove Sarah/Tabitha to strip. She was raised in an atmosphere filled with the classics, but the pain she experienced allowed her to experience and share with us the emptiness of that "high-mindedness." She paints a complete picture of the dives, the other strippers, and the audience. All Diana's people seem whole, alive. Yes, the book is gritty and pulls no punches. That adds to it's interest, I think. I tried to take my time reading this because I loved it so much. I wish Diana Atkinson would pick up her pen and write some more. She writes beautifully.

Stripped the layers of B.S.,was a very refreashing read.

Finally. Reality. Invaluable stark reality, is what I appreciate about Diana's novel. But its only for those with the balls to read real life. Whether you like it or not. The glamour of the exotic dancing profession is thrown out the window to a garbadge strewn, rain soaked ally, like the strippers gem studded thong flung to the floor. Reality can be beautiful, but Diana shows us the other very real side, the black ugliness of willing sexual stupidity. The willing, willful tendancies of the human mind to very purposely overlook the humanness of the objects of their sexual scorn or sexual titaliation. Any male or female who has ever witnessed a exotic dancer, or anyone who has been one, ought to read this, not only to appreciate the execellent literary read, but also as a type of "for your information" manal. Got the guts? Then read!