Madam

October 30, 2006
The author of her own memoir about being a prostitute, Callgirl
, Angell ventures a sympathetic biography of a woman known as Peach, the madam of the escort service Angell worked for. Writing Peach's story in the first person, Angell gets at the human side of the business, as Peach declares she is proud to employ gorgeous, gutsy girls with education and help them along their way in life. With some literary aspirations herself, and having worked first in sales and then as a receptionist for a Boston madam named Laura, Peach decides to open her own "out-call" business, Avanti, specializing in "vanilla sex and a chat." At first, she rarely has time to meet the girls she employs, but relies on their street smarts and status as students; instantly, her service catering to lonely middle-class clients takes off. The money is great, the parties fab, the drugs copious, and Peach even gains notoriety in the area, although some girls take advantage of her, burn out or even die of an overdose. Peach's upbringing as a Southern lady tempered her cynicism, she notes, and the early trauma of her father's death shaped her; though the Scarlett O'Hara act at disdaining vulgarity is unconvincing (money, for example, is seldom discussed). Angell sounds the happy businesswoman theme that running a prostitution ring is just a stepping stone to marriage and motherhood.