Kirkus Reviews
“Engrossing, no-holds-barred story of a college lecturer by day and a callgirl by night. When a live-in boyfriend (known here only as Peter the Rat Bastard) moved out in the mid-1990s and took the contents of their joint checking account with him, the author was strapped for cash. To supplement her small income as an adjunct sociology lecturer at a Boston-area college, she contacted the owner of an escort service whose ad had caught her attention. As a callgirl-in her view, “a skilled professional possessing an area of knowledge for which there is a demand” – she could net $140 an hour plus tips and keep her respectable day job. Angell signed on and found that her clients were ordinary guys, much like the men she had dated. Her blow-by-blow accounts of her encounters range from sexless eating bouts with a restaurant owner to an evening with a man who just wanted to wear her undergarments to “doubles” sessions with a client and a second callgirl. It’s not all action, however; the author gives ample space to her thoughts about sex and prostitution. Besides the close-ups of the clients and their quirks, she paints deft profiles of the escort-service owner, known here as Peach, and of a cocaine-addicted co-worker. Angell brought the two sides of her life together in a course on the history and sociology of prostitution that led to some academic recognition and a heavier teaching load. Eventually, aware that her classroom work was deteriorating and that she wasn’t getting any younger (she was in her mid-30s), she decided to quit her night job, pushed over the edge by a frightening brush with the law. While this reads like a memoir, a faint suspicion lingers that it could be fiction, like the author’s previous work (The Illusionist, 2000, etc.). Either way, it provides a revelatory view of a life few women know much about.”
Callgirl was number 6 on the August 2004 Booksense Picks list and was a finalist for the Booksense Nonfiction Book Of The Year for 2004.
“Both academically and professionally, this author knows her subject — and that is what makes this account of her three years as a $200-an-hour Boston call girl worth the read. Angell provides an intelligent, well-articulated perspective that challenges established assumptions.” — Phyllis M. Potter, Islehaven Books & Borzoi, Lopez Island, WA
Angell’s true story, her first memoir, is not different from many sex workers stories, except she is a writer – a charming and engaging word-smith who offers an excellent case for how much like everyone else sex workers are. By day they are mothers, neighbors, sisters, teachers – just like you and me – and by night, they pay their bills.
But this isn’t all political dogma, dear readers. It’s the kind of book that I picked up thinking, “I’ll just take a glance tonight and get to this over the weekend.” Well, I didn’t put it down. Angell is one of the most witty and intelligent writers out there. “What?” you ask. “A hooker can’t be intelligent.”
You bet your booties she can too! Not only that, but the book is funny, wry and a sympathetic read. It should change anyone’s perceptions about sex workers. I bet you know one, or know someone who used to be one, or know someone who is related to someone working as a call girl right now. “Not me!” you say. Yes you – YOU. And me, and everyone else.
What is so extraordinary about this story is how ordinary – how “normal” if you will (whatever normal means?) Angell and all of the other characters in The Business are. (All names except Angell’s were changed to protect identities.) She clearly cares about Peach and the other women she deals with, as she does about her students. She is a nice girl – a nice call girl. But don’t call her “a hooker with a heart of gold” or any of those other stereotypes. Instead realize that this could be any one of us (men included) who were pressed. She manages to escape it all fairly unscathed, and ten years later – married and a well published novelist, Jeannette Angell offers us a unique glimpse into the life of a call girl…the girl next door, or maybe even you? The Hiss Quarterly — Ella McCrystle
Prior to writing Callgirl, Jeannette Angell had been writing fiction, with four books published in the last 10 years. In Callgirl, though, Angell breaks the mold to share a true, personal story with insight, grit, humor, and a fine writer’s expertise of the three years when she was teaching courses at universities in Boston during the day and working as a call girl at night.
Callgirl is an intimate glimpse into a world not many people, least of all the clients, has ever seen or understood. The Blue Iris Journal — Claire Krulikowski
When Jeanette Angell’s boyfriend ran off with her life savings, she decided to try the world’s oldest profession to make some quick money. She stayed in it for the next three years. This is her compelling story.
Angell’s anthropology training, coupled with her deft writing skills, has produced a surprising, sordid, and sultry look into high-class prostitution like never before. Angell describes a spectrum of clients from the sweet and lonely, to those who can suddenly turn sadistic. You’ll learn how the profession works: from her madam, Peach, who sets up the appointments, to what the callgirls are actually thinking while they’re working. Fascinating, at times heartbreaking, and full of all the answers to the prurient questions we’re too polite to ask, Callgirl is a revealing look at what goes on behind hotel doors, high-rises, and even white-picket fences, when men pay for sex. — Book of the Month Club
What’s it like to trade sex for cash? Jeanette Angell found out after her lover ran off with her life savings. Hoping to make some quick money, she sampled the World’s Oldest Profession-and stayed in the game for three years. Now, she takes you behind the scenes for an eye-opening look at the world of high-class prostitution. Meet a spectrum of Johns- from the sweet and lonely to the suddenly sadistic. Find out how the profession works and what callgirls are really thinking while they’re hard at work! Filled with answers to our most prurient questions, it’s a revealing look at what goes on behind hotel doors, inside offices and even beyond the picket fence…when men pay big bucks for sex. — Venus Book Club
Talk about slumming it: When Jeanette Angell’s boyfriend made off with her life savings, the 34-year-old college lecturer, sociology Ph.D, and former Yale Divinity School student began moonlighting as a $200-an-hour escort. Now married, this former callgirl bares all in her racy, strip-smart memoir, offering us an intimate peek into a rarely seen world.
Teaching by day and making “dates” by night, Angell led a double life for three years in the 1990s. From chaste food dates with a Boston restaurateur to a cross-dresser who just wants to wear her underwear, she describes her undercover encounters with a range of mostly ordinary johns, profiles her co-workers and their quirky madam, Peach, and recounts in unabashed detail the cocaine-and-champagne-fueled nights she spent as a top-dollar escort. Angell takes us between the sheets, but she also brings us inside the industry itself with her cogent insights about sex, companionship, and what call girls are really thinking on the job. Lonesome for an intelligent, titillating companion? Then give this Callgirl a ring. — Quality Paperback Book Club
Callgirl, Jan 16, 2005
Reviewer: JODY EWING
A Look at a Mysterious and Misunderstood Profession
Callgirl is no ordinary tell-all book, and Jeannette Angell no ordinary writer. The French-born author – who earned her Master of Divinity degree at Yale and her doctorate in social anthropology from Boston University – had just begun a new semester teaching a series of college lectures when a live-in boyfriend vanished, wiping out her bank account and prepaid salary. Boston’s rent wasn’t cheap, and she needed money, fast. She answered an ad by a mid-level escort service, and spent the next three years working as a $200-an-hour Boston callgirl by night and university lecturer by day. Callgirl is a studious account of those years and a behind-the-scenes look at one of America’s most mysterious and misunderstood professions. Callgirl also takes a thought-provoking look at a common assertion – that men who employ prostitutes are normal but the women who engage in the trade are not. Angell successfully breaks down many stereotypes in a page-turning memoir one won’t easily forget.
“Her tone is often smart and businesslike, and the writing, like her work, is neither steamy nor entirely cynical. But the emotional and physical perils of call girl work, and Angell’s allegedly “OK” drug use do leave the reader wondering.” — Mopsy Strange Kennedy, The Improper Bostonian. August 11, 2004
“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.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“Callgirl will likely explode onto the book-club network.” — Shawn Badgley, The Austin Chronicle
“…the significance of this book lies in its value as a cultural and psychological document. Hardly unique in a long line of such fiction and nonfiction first-person accounts, Callgirl stands out for its intelligence and sensitivity. Angell’s conversational voice throughout — and it does seem at times that she is dictating this narrative — conveys sincerity, even if details are selective and names, as she acknowledges, have been changed — except her own. A memoir can be autobiographical without being autobiography.” — Joan Baum, The Independent Newspaper
One of Marggie Skinner’s Book House picks for 8/17/04 — WAMC, Northeast Public Radio
Overall, this is a fascinating memoir, not just because of the subject matter, but because of the quality of the writing, the storytelling. It raises some solid questions about morality, sexuality, and the empowerment of women that I didn’t expect. And while I may have almost been in the same boat as the author at one time, but chose to say no when my time came, I can certainly understand why some women choose to say yes. Callgirl is more than a dishy sex tell-all; it’s a social commentary that just might change the way you look at prostitution. — Hippo Press