Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper

Full of insight and wit, Candy Girl is the seductive memoir of a young woman who dared to bare it all as a stripper

Diablo Cody was twenty-four years old when she decided there had to be more to life than typing copy at an ad agency. On a whim, she signed up for amateur night at Minneapoli‛s seedy Skyway Lounge. She did‛t win a prize that night, but she discovered that stripping delivered a rush she had never experienced before, and too many experiences to not write about it. While she did‛t fit the ordinary profile of a stripperĀ—she had a supportive boyfriend, was equal parts brainpower and beauty, was from a good family, and was out to do a little soul searchingĀ—she soon immersed herself in this enticing life full-time.

In Candy Girl, Diablo tells the captivating fish-out-of-water story of her yearlong walk on the wild side. In witty prose she gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at this industry through a write‛s keen eye, from quiet gentleme‛s clubs to multi-level sex palaces, with all of her wry observations along the way. Some of her discoveries? Blondes make more money; it takes a pro to master The Pole; and while the girls wield much sway over the customers, in reality the power is totally out of their hands. Eventually, the lucrative skin trade began to drain Diablo emotionally, but her foray into this world had a profound and, surprisingly, positive effect. Funny and fascinating, Candy Girl is a seductive treat.

"Diablo Cody is to stripping what Chuck Klosterman is to pop culture and Sarah Vowell is to American History--an off-kilter visionary cynical enough to trust and talented enough to blister all that her mighty pen touches. Candy Girl is fiendishly funny, muscle car fast, and frighteningly--and I do mean frighteningly--accurate. Lock up your daughters and get your lighters in the air, for Candy Girl proves Ms. Diablo to be a writer of rock star calibre."

--Lily Burana, author, "STRIP CITY: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America"

"Why, you might ask, would a healthy, college-educated young woman start stripping for a living, when she could work in a nice, clean office? Cody, now an arts editor for Minneapolis's alternative weekly, had spent her whole life (all 24 years) 'choking on normalcy, decency and Jif sandwiches with the crusts amputated.' When she moved from Chicago to Minnesota to live with the new boyfriend she'd found on the 'World Wide Waste of Time,' she took a job at an ad agency — a setup with good 'porn shui' (desk well angled for undetected online porn surfing) but not much else. Attracted by a local bar's amateur stripping contest, Cody soon moved from stage stripping to lap dancing, from tableside to bedside customer service and, finally, peep-show sex. Removing her clothes and dry-humping strangers in sex clubs had become her way of escaping premature respectability. Quite inexplicably, her boyfriend was completely cool with her new occupation, even joining her on occasional sex jaunts. When the inevitable burnout set in, Cody switched to phone sex, until that, too, got old, and the 9-to-5 straight world beckoned. Cody's so alarmingly entertaining, readers will wish the book were longer, though they'll be glad it ends before anything really ugly happens. Agent, Paula Balzer. (Jan.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Diablo Cody is a freelance journalist and is currently the associate arts editor for City Pages, Minneapoli‛ alternative weekly. Her now defunct website,“The Pussy Ranch” scored over one million page views in its seventeen-month run, garnering acclaim from The Village Voice, among others. Her first screenplay, "Juno," is being produced by Mandate Pictures, and she has two other screenplays in development with Warner Brothers.