Foreplay: The Memories of a Wanton Woman

Roman's pseudonymous account of street life--she worked in Toronto's strip joints, massage parlors and as a drug runner, joined a teen gang, spent time in prison and mental hospitals--is a raw, angry walk on the wild side. Its pseudo-Beat, foul-mouthed, crude style has a certain shock value that wears off quickly. Even when she describes the deaths of her ex-con lover and infant son in a fire, little emotion comes through to the reader. She writes of parents who ditched her, of experimenting with lesbian sex, of the male users and abusers, mobsters and misfits who swarmed around her. One puts down this sexploitative autobiography dismayed at the waste of a potential literary talent and of a life. (Mar.)