Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
96% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
94% positive over last 12 months
& FREE Shipping
95% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls: A Memoir Paperback – August 9, 2011
| Sheila McClear (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Price | New from | Used from |
Enhance your purchase
In 2006, Gotham City Video was among the last of its kind where, breathing in a cocktail of Pine-Sol and Windex, a man paid $40 to watch a girl strip naked behind glass. These fantasy lands, left over from the days when 42nd Street was the center of vice, eventually disappeared from the rapidly gentrifying city, their stories lost forever. Not those of tenderloin grinder, Sheila McCelar. Pulling back the curtain on the little-documented world of the peeps, her “ribald . . . memorable and highly relevant” (The Daily Beast) reflection is “both a eulogy and a paean to the freaks and misfits who have long given their souls to the city” (Matthew Gallaway, author of The Metropolis Case).
A late bloomer from small-town Michigan, Sheila arrived in New York as a struggling actress and soon found herself adrift. Borderline homeless, and crashing with friends, she finally got steady work that paid the rent—as a stripper along the triple-x stretch of Eighth Avenue. When Times Square seeped into her blood, she ended up staying much longer than she imagined. The story she tells is not just of her own coming-of-age, it’s a “sharp, sweetly personal . . . fascinating and honest” narrative of modern life on the fringes of society in New York City (Mark Jacobson, author of Pale Horse Rider).
- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSoft Skull
- Publication dateAugust 9, 2011
- Dimensions5.52 x 0.67 x 8.21 inches
- ISBN-101593764006
- ISBN-13978-1593764005
Inspire a love of reading with Amazon Book Box for Kids
Discover delightful children's books with Amazon Book Box, a subscription that delivers new books every 1, 2, or 3 months — new Amazon Book Box Prime customers receive 15% off your first box. Sign up now
Customers who bought this item also bought
Editorial Reviews
Review
"McClear writes about her secret peep-show existence with the ribald expertise of a natural storyteller, but it’s her deeper exploration, into the motivations behind her actions, that makes the book both memorable and highly relevant." -Daily Beast
"Sheila McClear's sharp, sweetly personal account of New York's vanished tenderloin asks the question if such supposedly degrading places are such a blight, why do we remember them with such fondness? A fascinating and honest read." Mark Jacobson, author of The Lampshade andAmerican Gangster
"McClear is most convincing and most moving, in fact, on the complex relationship between the sex trade and her own frustrated sex life." -Public Books
"Sheila McClear's beautifully detailed account of her life as a peep-show girl reads as both a eulogy and a paean to the freaks and misfits who have long given their souls to the city. Filled with psychological insight, metaphor, and above all empathy, this book should be read by anyone who has ever taken or even contemplated extreme measures to escape the pain and tedium of life, with the hope of finding some meaning or redemption along the way." Matthew Gallaway, author of The Metropolis Case
Ms. McClear’s closeness to the material most enriches her reporting when it comes to her coworkers. Despite their outsized personalities, they could have wound up sounding as interchangeable as their stage names, but with Ms. McClear’s writing, even their tattoos are memorable. Their substance abuse becomes familiar, occasionally even endearing, in a madcap way. Ms. McClear also has a keen ear for dialogue.” New York Observer
Sheila McClear is a reminder that kids can still arrive in New York City from Nowheresville and break in with some serious grit, hard work, and talent.” Out Magazine
"Everyone is required to buy two copies." Gawker
"Eye-opening, gritty, and compelling." The Paris Review Online
"A collection of disciplined and rewarding New York tales." -The L Magazine
About the Author
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Product details
- Publisher : Soft Skull; 0 edition (August 9, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1593764006
- ISBN-13 : 978-1593764005
- Item Weight : 9 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.52 x 0.67 x 8.21 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #385,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78 in Study of Pornography
- #861 in Culinary Biographies & Memoirs
- #5,148 in Women's Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Sheila McClear is a reporter at the New York Daily News. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Post and on Gawker.com. She lives in Brooklyn.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
For that reason alone, this book is valuable -- just to get into the mind set of why a young, intelligent woman would take up this lifestyle. McClear explains that and so much more in clear, engaging prose that draws you into a world most of us would shun. It is dark, sometimes depressing, funny, touching -- in short, the gamut of human emotions.
Her writing seems to grow as the book unfolds until the last few paragraphs which are absolutely entrancing. I'm glad she made her way out of there to a lifestyle she might have thought impossible back then.
Now a writer for the New York Post, Ms. McClear has put together a book which brings the world she formerly lived in to the curious reader, especially those who walked past those establishments often but never really understood what they were about or the way the job impacted the women and distorted their worldview.
So well written that I couldn't put stop reading, I soon identified with the author as she changed into a street smart victim of this unique lifestyle. Nobody forced her to do this. She made her choices herself. And, for a while she enjoyed it but was wise enough to leave when she saw the effect it had her.
There are also sections of the book about this sleaze business in general and the history of the politics of New York regarding this kind of entertainment. I loved this book and heartily recommend it.
Top reviews from other countries
On the strength of this book, I would be happy to buy Ms McClear's next book - whatever the topic. A great new reporter.





