The Happy Hooker: My Own Story

From Publishers Weekly Xaviera Hollander has been writing a Penthouse column for 30 years. She chronicled her life as a "high-class New York madam" in 1972's The Happy Hooker: My Own Story, which now returns to print. Frankly discussing lesbianism, bondage, voyeurism and run-ins with lawyers and the FBI, Hollander's book was an international bestseller. In her new epilogue, Hollander rather questionably attests that although her stories may not be as shocking or taboo now as they were in 1972, "the business of sex [has] a new relevance" since September 11. Regan Books will also publish Hollander's new memoir, Child No More, in June (a review will run in an upcoming issue). From Library Journal Dutch madam Hollander scored big with this 1972 autobiography, which became a best seller 15 million copies worldwide. Although the book ended up in the hands of respectable readers, it's little more than smut, as Hollander recounts how she left Holland for a job as a secretary in New York, got bored, and became a prostitute and brothel manager (doesn't everybody?). Three decades later, when you can find raunchier stuff on prime-time TV, this is kind of kitschy. This 30th-anniversary edition contains a new epilog. *** An astute historian of New York prostitution might have heard a small bell ringing in their head upon reading the name of the woman accused of arranging prostitutes for Eliot’s Emperors Club VIP: Tanya Hollander. You see, New York’s most notorious prostitute (and madam) ever, the Happy Hooker, was named Xaveria Hollander. Was it now a family business? We called the old girl in Amsterdam to check. “No, she’s not my daughter,” Hollander tells us from what she refers to as her “bed and brothel” on Amsterdam’s Gold Coast. “But it’s a wickedly chosen nom de plume.” (We prefer to think of it as a "nom de poon.") Was the Happy Hooker herself shocked by the news of Spitzer’s dalliances? Not really, save for the prices being bandied about. “Is that what they get paid these days?” she asks, referring to the $5,000 allegedly earned by Ashley Alexandra Dupré. “I was in the $100 bracket.” Let's talk quality of clientele. Is Spitzer really that big of a deal? Who did Hollander meet in the boudoir? “I had my dealings with the White House,” she says. “But it was more discreet. Newsweek offered to pay me a lot of money if I’d admitted that Sinatra was my client. But I never talked. My affairs we’re never sleazy. I might have mentioned something about a crooner from New Jersey, though…” Hollander has written eighteen books since her seminal tome in the seventies, in addition to writing the "Call Me Madam" column in Penthouse from 1973 to 2005. Coming soon to a bookstore near you: The Happy Hooker’s Guide to Sex-69 Orgasmic Ways to Pleasure a Woman, from New York’s very own Skyhorse Publishing. We're the hooker capital of the world! -Duff McDonald