SERVICING THE POLE
A novel by Lauri Shaw
Some people have nightmares about showing up to work naked.
Other people live them.
Servicing the Pole is the portrait of a New York stripper in the 1990’s – a battle-worn misfit slogging her way through the city’s roughest clubs, watching as the job replaces her personal life, and secretly harbouring rock star ambitions.
As the fast-paced night life’s deceptive promises of easy money gradually give way to the harsher realities of addiction and prostitution, Emily must decide – is this really the person she wants to be? And if so, at what price?
Bio:
Lauri Shaw is a writer based in London. You can now read a new chapter of her novel, Servicing the Pole, every week at www.laurishaw.com.
Lauri was born in Forest Hills, N.Y. and raised in West Egg, Long Island. West Egg's points of interest include a remarkable deficit of people between the ages of 18 and 35. From her street, Lauri could spit right into King's Point. She often did.
West Egg was a place where everyone was encouraged to be the best at whatever it was that they did. Lauri remembers it as an idyllic pastiche of bulimia, Prozac, nose jobs and nose candy.
Lauri was an insufferable problem child. Fortunately for her, those records are sealed. She left home at fifteen, disappeared into the New York night life shortly thereafter, and emerged in her twenties with a terrible hangover. No pictures exist from this period. When Lauri came to, she'd somehow acquired a job in a recording studio.
She fronted a punk band, and was fairly content with their form of prescription rebellion until the group made a record. When she heard what they sounded like on tape, she ran screaming all the way to Tinseltown.
She spent the next several years establishing herself as a hack. While most of her pieces were about music, Lauri has also written articles and web copy for lifestyle magazines, fitness publications, and various clients, including Warner Bros. Television.
Lauri's hobbies include torturing well-meaning, innocent men. In January 2007, she found one that she enjoys torturing exclusively, and followed him to London at his behest. Heaven help him.
