Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren (English) Paperback Book

Description: Some Girls by Jillian Lauren A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a princes harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a princes harem, and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman in Singapore would pay pretty American girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next eighteen months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei, leaving behind her gritty East Village apartment for a palace with rugs laced with gold and trading her band of artist friends for a coterie of backstabbing beauties.More than just a sexy read set in an exotic land, Some Girls is also the story of how a rebellious teen found herself-and the courage to meet her birth mother and eventually adopt a baby boy. Author Biography Jillian Lauren is a writer, storyteller, mom, and rock-wife. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoirs Everything You Ever Wanted and Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, and the novel Pretty. Some Girls has been translated into 18 different languages and is currently being adapted for TV. She has written for The New York Times, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Magazine, Elle, The Daily Beast and Salon, among others.She lives with her husband, musician Scott Shriner, and their two sons in Los Angeles. Review "Some Girls is a heart-stoppingly thrilling story told by a punk rock Scheherazade. Lauren writes with such lyrical ease - the book is almost musical, an enduring melody of what it is to be a woman." -Margaret Cho "Lauren... is a deft storyteller, imparting equal parts poignant reflection and wisdom into her enlightening book. A gritty, melancholy memoir leavened by the authors amiable, engrossing narrative tenor." -Kirkus Reviews "Some Girls would have been riveting even if Jillian Lauren had merely illuminated the murky world of high-class prostitution for the general reader. The fact that she does so with humor, candor, and a reporters gimlet eye is an added delight. But Some Girls also undertakes the deepest challenge: it reveals how and why a middle-class kid like Lauren found herself in such a line of work--and how she got out." -Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep "Wow, what a story! Jillian Laurens Some Girls is the most exotic sex worker memoir Ive ever read. Imagine being paid to play with the richest men in the world? Few women dare to speak of their youthful sexual adventures with such honesty and clarity. I cant wait for the movie." -Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D Catfights, mad cash, priceless jewels -- whats a young girl from Jersey to do? Welcome to the sultans harem, a secret world filled with artful seduction and parties that never end. What starts out juicy quickly turns soulful in this elegantly crafted, multi-layered stunner of a memoir. Lauren strikes the perfect balance between light and shadow in her spellbinding tale of one womans exotic search for identity and true love." -Rachel Resnick, author of Love Junkie "Lauren is a gifted and lyrical writer whose coming-of-age tale has the reader firmly under its spell by the end of the first paragraph. Her emotional insight is deeply penetrating, allowing us to feel kinship with her even as we marvel at her rarefied adventures. Lauren generously brings us along for an amazing ride as she seeks, and then finds, meaning and connection in her life. I couldnt put it down." -Nina Hartley, author of Nina Hartleys Guide to Total Sex "Jillian Laurens Some Girls takes readers into a world so dramatic, it seems almost too far out to be true. But the bracing realism that infuses her storytelling lifts the veil of harem life and shows us the gritty truth of life in fantasy-land. Her transformation from dream girl-for-hire to rock-n-roll mama proves that resilience and reinvention, more than diamonds, are a girls best friend. -Lily Burana, author of Strip City "Some Girls reads like a swiftly-paced novel, but gets under your skin in a way fiction cant. This is a striptease of a book, sexy and mesmerizing at first, but at the end a very real woman stands in front of you, exposed and vulnerable. I couldnt put it down, and when I was done, I couldnt stop thinking about it." -Claire LaZebnik, author of Knitting Under the Influence Review Quote "Some Girlsis a heart-stoppingly thrilling story told by a punk rock Scheherazade. Lauren writes with such lyrical ease - the book is almost musical, an enduring melody of what it is to be a woman." -Margaret Cho "Lauren... is a deft storyteller, imparting equal parts poignant reflection and wisdom into her enlightening book. A gritty, melancholy memoir leavened by the authors amiable, engrossing narrative tenor." -KirkusReviews "Some Girlswould have been riveting even if Jillian Lauren had merely illuminated the murky world of high-class prostitution for the general reader. The fact that she does so with humor, candor, and a reporters gimlet eye is an added delight. But Some Girlsalso undertakes the deepest challenge: it reveals how and why a middle-class kid like Lauren found herself in such a line of work--and how she got out." -Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep "Wow, what a story! Jillian Laurens Some Girlsis the most exotic sex worker memoir Ive ever read. Imagine being paid to play with the richest men in the world? Few women dare to speak of their youthful sexual adventures with such honesty and clarity. I cant wait for the movie." -Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D Catfights, mad cash, priceless jewels -- whats a young girl from Jersey to do? Welcome to the sultans harem, a secret world filled with artful seduction and parties that never end. What starts out juicy quickly turns soulful in this elegantly crafted, multi-layered stunner of a memoir. Lauren strikes the perfect balance between light and shadow in her spellbinding tale of one womans exotic search for identity and true love." -Rachel Resnick, author of Love Junkie "Lauren is a gifted and lyrical writer whose coming-of-age tale has the reader firmly under its spell by the end of the first paragraph. Her emotional insight is deeply penetrating, allowing us to feel kinship with her even as we marvel at her rarefied adventures. Lauren generously brings us along for an amazing ride as she seeks, and then finds, meaning and connection in her life. I couldnt put it down." -Nina Hartley, author of Nina Hartleys Guide to Total Sex "Jillian Laurens Some Girlstakes readers into a world so dramatic, it seems almost too far out to be true. But the bracing realism that infuses her storytelling lifts the veil of harem life and shows us the gritty truth of life in fantasy-land. Her transformation from dream girl-for-hire to rock-n-roll mama proves that resilience and reinvention, more than diamonds, are a girls best friend. -Lily Burana, author of Strip City "Some Girlsreads like a swiftly-paced novel, but gets under your skin in a way fiction cant. This is a striptease of a book, sexy and mesmerizing at first, but at the end a very real woman stands in front of you, exposed and vulnerable. I couldnt put it down, and when I was done, I couldnt stop thinking about it." -Claire LaZebnik, author of Knitting Under the Influence Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION Spending her last thirty dollars to catch a yellow cab to the airport, restless and determined eighteen year-old Jillian Lauren was at the precipice of an incredible journey. One that would and take her halfway around the world, shatter her illusions, and altogether challenge her sense of self. Lauren would become part of the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei, emerging from the experience only a couple of years older, but infinitely wiser. Sone Girls traces Laurens life from growing up in suburban New Jersey, to living with artist friends in a gritty East Village apartment, to her arrival in an art filled, gilded palace in Borneo. After dropping out of NYU theater school, Lauren follows a tip about upcoming audition, where a "casting director" promises a rich businessman in Singapore will pay American girls $20,000 to stay for two weeks and spice up his parties. Soon, it is revealed that Lauren, and a host of other international beauties, will spend time entertaining the charming, yet taciturn, Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei, nicknamed Robin, and his entourage. Jillian was one of the first Western women to infiltrate this modern-day iteration of an ancient institution. As she recounts the lavish parties, a parallel tale unfolds--rich in an entirely different way--of Jillians quest for her identity. Knowing little of the etiquette and duties expected of her, Lauren quickly learns the unwritten rules of harem life. Evening parties are a competition, with the ladies all vying for the playboy Robins attention--not just for sport--but for survival. Jillian is intoxicated by the riches, the glamour, and above all by the Princes charm. She learns to play the role of a modern day Sheherazade to keep his interest. But eventually, amid the late night discos, extravagant shopping sprees and diamond-faced Rolexes, catering to Jefris capricious whims takes its toll. Lauren ultimately comes to question whether this princes kingdom really is the happily ever after she imagined. She leaves set on a different course entirely--to find her birth mother and eventually adopt a baby boy. With poignant storytelling, at times heartbreaking, yet hopeful, Some Girls is the story of a young womans remarkable search for identity. ABOUT JILLIAN LAUREN Author and performer Jillian Lauren grew up in suburban New Jersey and fled across the water to New York City. Her memoir, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem , was published by Plume on April 27 2010. Her novel, Pretty , will be published by Plume in May 2011. Jillian has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair , Flaunt Magazine , Pindeldyboz Magazine and Opium Magazine , among others. She has read at spoken word events across the country and has recently worked with directors as diverse as Steve Balderson, Lynne Breedlove and Margaret Cho. She is married to musician Scott Shriner. They live in Los Angeles with their son. A CONVERSATION WITH JILLIAN LAUREN Q. Some Girls is the story of your experiences in the sex industry, including an 18 month period living in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei. Why did you want to share your story? I think its important for women to be truthful about their lives, particularly women on the fringes of society, who often keep silent because were led to believe that our stories are something to be ashamed of. We let our stories be told by others, usually men, and we wind up repeatedly being the bodies left behind by serial killers or the hookers with the hearts of gold. I wanted to tell my own story: how I became a sex worker and what it did to my life and my dreams. I wanted to portray the complexity of the experience and to present an emotional journey that I believe will be familiar to many women, even those to whom the events of the narrative may seem outrageous. Q. The book is a brutally honest, unapologetic memoir. How were you able to get to the point in your life where you could talk candidly and without shame about your experiences in such extreme situations? Eighteen years passed before I was able to tell this story. It took that long to be ready, from both a craft standpoint and an emotional standpoint, to do the story justice. For me, the trick to writing about such a wild and often dark time in my life was to have a stable foundation. I have a pretty boring life now, and I mean that in the best way. I write; I take care of my family; I go to yoga. Im lucky that I was able to emerge from the period of time I describe in Some Girls with my health and my sanity. And Im lucky that I was then able to assemble a life for myself in which I felt safe enough to tell my story. Q. You grew up in a middle class family in suburban New Jersey--not exactly a background most people would associate with international concubines. How did you end up working in the sex industry? A lot of different factors contributed to my decision to go into sex work, most prominently my burning desire to be on a stage and my difficult home life. By the time I turned eighteen and I got the job offer in Brunei, I was already dancing in strip clubs and working for an escort service. It was always an innate quality of mine to yearn for adventure, to seek out an extraordinary experience. So when a Prince invited me halfway around the world, of course I said yes. That was who I was at the time. Q. What lessons about life and humanity did you learn from the time you spent in the Brunei harem? Anything that you think would particularly surprise people? The real lessons for me were learned as I looked back and reflected. I was able to discover a different level of compassion for both myself and for the other people who shared my story. I looked at pictures of myself from that time and I said, What was so wrong with me? Why did I hate myself so much? I was beautiful. I was hopeful. I was brave. I was adorable. I can see it now clear as day, but I couldnt see it then. The story is about struggling to love yourself and learning to forgive yourself. Q. In the book, you talk about having been adopted and share your curiosities about what your birth mother looked like and whether or not you got certain traits from her. How do you think being adopted affected the course of your life and the decisions you made? Its hard to say how adoption affected the course of my life, because being adopted is such an integral part of who I am. Adoption is a wonderful thing, but it definitely has profound implications for all of the parties involved. I think all of our stories are, in one way or another, about piecing together the puzzle of our true selves. My search for my birth mother, as written about in Some Girls , is a piece of that puzzle. Q. You had a strained relationship with your father growing up and write about how he would make negative remarks about your body, weight and intelligence and even become physically abusive with you, your brother and mother. Have you come to terms with your fathers treatment of you? Im not sure Ive come to terms with it. I suspect that coming to terms with my relationship with my father is probably going to be a lifelong journey. When youre dealing with something like abuse, people often expect it to be a black and white situation: abuser and victim, bad guy and good guy. But in my case its more complicated than that. Because my father is a very loving and generous man in many ways and I care about him a great deal, but hes also a flawed and tragic character who inflicted a lot of damage. So the question for me is how do you portray that in a compassionate and honest way. Writing about my father was probably the most painful part of the process for me and required the most soul-searching. Q. Have your parents read your book? How much do they know about what you experienced? My parents were already aware of some of my adventures, but certainly a handful of the revelations in Some Girls were a surprise to them. My parents are hurt by the book and that saddens me a great deal. But it was a story I was compelled to write and I believe it has the potential to connect with many women. I did my best to write a deeply honest and compassionate account of that time in my life and my family was part of that story. I had hoped my family would be more supportive of the book, but I have faith that well work through this difficult time. Weve gone through worse. Q. There has been some hoopla in recent years over the validity of memoirs. What would you say to someone who might question the truth and accuracy of your story? How was the book corroborated? Of course the matter of lying in memoirs is on everyones minds right now. I definitely had to produce photographs and documents to satisfy my publisher. But on a more personal level, I wrote this book as an exercise in radical honesty. Ive always kept journals and I was incredibly fortunate to have those documents to draw on. The deeper question for me was more about the emotional authenticity of the work. Its the central question in any memoir and it was something that I had to examine and reexamine with every draft I wrote. Q. What do you hope readers take away from your book? Writing this book was in part an attempt to be honest about my struggle to love myself and hopefully to invite other women to recognize a shared experience. Most of the women reading the book will not have had the experience of being an international teenage escort, but I believe the emotions involved are surprisingly universal. Q. You are now th Excerpt from Book The Shahs wife was unfaithful to him, so he cut off her head and summarily declared all women to be evil and thereby deserving of punishment. Every night the Shahs grand vizier brought him a new virgin to marry and every morning the Shah had the woman executed. After too many of these bloody sunrises, the viziers eldest and favorite daughter asked to be brought to the Shah as that nights offering. The grand vizier protested, but his daughter insisted, and this daughter was known through Details ISBN0452296315 Author Jillian Lauren Short Title SOME GIRLS Language English ISBN-10 0452296315 ISBN-13 9780452296312 Media Book Format Paperback Audience Age 18-17 DEWEY B Pages 368 Year 2010 Publication Date 2010-04-27 Subtitle My Life in a Harem Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2010-04-27 NZ Release Date 2010-04-27 US Release Date 2010-04-27 UK Release Date 2010-04-27 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint New American Library Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:26768260;

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