Customer Reviews

Highways and Dancehalls: A Novel

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Finally. Reality. Invaluable stark reality, is what I appreciate about Diana's novel. But its only for those with the balls to read real life. Whether you like it or not. The glamour of the exotic dancing profession is thrown out the window to a garbadge strewn, rain soaked ally, like the strippers gem studded thong flung to the floor. Reality can be beautiful, but Diana shows us the other very real side, the black ugliness of willing sexual stupidity. The willing, willful tendancies of the human mind to very purposely overlook the humanness of the objects of their sexual scorn or sexual titaliation. Any male or female who has ever witnessed a exotic dancer, or anyone who has been one, ought to read this, not only to appreciate the execellent literary read, but also as a type of "for your information" manal. Got the guts? Then read!

This is the story about Sarah, or Tabitha, a stripper from BC. Many different aspects of her life conflict: her relationship with her mother and her father, her slug boyfriend Lloyd, and her own past history with disease that has disfigured her. She is highly intelligent and literate, in part owed to her father, an English professor. This makes her stand out among strippers.
I found this book to be overwritten, and pretentious in some places. We get the feeling that Tabitha thinks she's better than the other strippers because she can quote Dante, yet she's exactly like the rest of them. I read the book all in one sitting, at the end just to get through it. There's no doubt that Atkinson can write. I'd like to see her try other, non-biographical topics.

Worth reading if you're in the mood for something vaguely disgusting and troublingly realistic. Not a great pick for a sultry summer day.

Diana Atkinson's Highways and Dancehalls is a poignant, enthralling coming-of-age drama taking place in strip joints across British Columbia. Diana gradually reveals the emotional and phyical abuse that drove Sarah/Tabitha to strip. She was raised in an atmosphere filled with the classics, but the pain she experienced allowed her to experience and share with us the emptiness of that "high-mindedness." She paints a complete picture of the dives, the other strippers, and the audience. All Diana's people seem whole, alive. Yes, the book is gritty and pulls no punches. That adds to it's interest, I think. I tried to take my time reading this because I loved it so much. I wish Diana Atkinson would pick up her pen and write some more. She writes beautifully.