When a bad boyfriend leaves with the contents of her checking account, professor and novelist Angell (The Illusionist
; Wings
; etc.) decides to stabilize her finances by responding to an ad seeking escorts. Surprisingly, the world she enters isn't all that different from the Boston dating scene she already knew; it's just far more lucrative. At least her clients are relatively clear about what they want, and Angell is able to teach by day and have "dates" by night for more than three years. Separation of her two worlds is crucial but not difficult: "what we do as prostitutes... does not constitute sex in our minds." The characters who populate this tour are often sympathetic, as is Angell, though her repeated assurances sometimes ring hollow in the face of her after-hours job's drug use, abuse and manipulative behavior. To process her own participation in prostitution, and to feed the fascinated responses of others, Angell eventually teaches a university-level class on its history that is, ironically, partly responsible for advancing her career to the point where she stops doing "calls" altogether. It also helped that she was nearly busted by an undercover cop, lost a dear friend to drugs and committed the faux pas of falling in love with a client. Now married, Angell winds down with a call to legalize prostitution to encourage regulation of this vast industry. Agent, Phillip
Spitzer. (Aug.)
Forecast:
Callgirl is shaping up to be one of Permanent's most commercial books ever: Angell will appear on
Oprah later this fall, and the book is a BookSense August pick, as well as a selection of all five BookSpan clubs. An excerpt will run in
Boston magazine, and rights have been sold in 11 overseas countries, totaling—with domestic rights sales—more than $100,000.
