Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian December 20, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida e mail: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: "Prostitution, Recidivism and Heroin Abuse:A Life Out Of Control!"
"Nobody Cries For Me" was written by a young prostitute named Joan, eloquently rearranged and sanitized for publication by professional journalist Sara Harris. Cast the First Stone Written in 1959, one would think the message of death that heroin casts would be listened to by society. Instead, the list of the dead from that drug grows even today. John Belushi, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Megan Connolly, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, Jerry Garcia, River Phoenix and Paul Demayo are just a few of the dead from this scourge. Possibly their lethal choices in life might of been influenced differently if they had chosen to read this book!

The protagonist, a professional prostitute named Joan, unrolls within these pages the incredible and sordid story of her life. She details her childhood in the slums of Boston to where the majority of this story took place, a dope-ridden life in New York City. Joan details everything-there is no sugar coating on her recounting of using heroin, being raped, jails, pimps, madams, junkies and vice cops. These themes are the reality of events, places and people that populate the prostitute's world, when conventional morality is terrifyingly stretched beyond repair. Was Joan telling the truth to Sara Harris? Harris retorts unequivocally "yes". In fact, Harris qualifies the story that unfolds as follows: "In some ways it is more valuable in pointing out the true nature of the drive toward antisocial behavior than is many a sociological treatise".

Joan starts her story by recounting her dysfunctional childhood. While mentioning that her father died when she was 3, she called her mother a "sporting woman". Joan found out when she was 10 that her mom: "used to have sweethearts, maybe 3 or 4 at a time, and they must have liked her type because they'd keep coming back to her. They were all bachelors and legits. And they'd provide her with a beautiful apartment, a car, and the best of clothes". Her male role model was her step-father, "Len" who was an expert at the "Maryellen", which was a word back in the 50's for bumping into somebody and taking their wallet out of their pocket. Having mixed religious beliefs of a half-Jewish, half-Catholic background, Joan learned an important message from her mother when she was 11. Joan is told by her mother: "When Jesus Christ comes down off his cross, that's when I'll start believing in Him. Then she'd take a 5 or 10 dollar bill out of her pocketbook and wave it in my face and say, "This is my God. The almighty dollar. It's the only God I trust". Left alone and neglected as a teenager, Joan found out that her mother was a confirmed addict when she was 13. Sadly, Joan remembered about ther mom the following: "She'd sleep on trains and streetcars and in public restaurants. She'd just sit and go on the nod and get sleepier and sleepier until finally she'd go off. Sometimes she foamed at the mouth. I'd be so embarrassed."

When Joan was 15, her step father went to jail, and her mother picked up a new boyfriend, an addict and dealer. To get away from it all, Joan went to live with an Aunt in New Jersey. Bored and frustrated, she meets a man, is taken to a pool hall, and is raped on a pool table. Despite the sexual assault, she stays with this man, and is subsequently caught having sex with him in a car by the police. After a few days in jail, The judge orders Joan back to her mom to protect her. Joan ruefully wrote: "I wonder where he would have sent me if he'd known who my mother was". The story goes rapidly downhill from here. Joan's mother, reeling from the effects of heroin, tries to teach Joan how to be a lady. Joan tells her mother: "You can't tell me what to do after the dirty life you led. You can't guide me, being a whore and a dope addict. Mom, you couldn't guide a cockroach".

Joan starts to hang around what she called "seaman's bars". Sure enough, she meets a man named Johnny, is raped violently by him, and later finds out she is pregnant. Johnny ships out to sea, and Joan is left alone, with no money or father. Her mother's great idea, so the child isn't born out of wedlock, is for Joan to marry her boyfriend, which Joan reluctantly agrees to. Of course, he gets arrested, goes to jail, and Joan has a 9 lb. son, all alone and surrounded by insanity. Joan goes back to the seaman's bars, looking for Johnny, and one day he comes in. After being told he is a father, they agree to get an apartment together, and Johnny suggests that Joan take up prostitution. He introduces Joan to a friend of his, Corrina. Corrina teaches her the tricks of the trade, called "car-soliciting".

Joan goes into great detail about this "car-soliciting". She writes: "Car dates are the quickest kind of dates. Usually, the car trick is nervous and is anxious to get the thing over with as you are. He doesn't care about preliminaries the way house tricks and call tricks do. I hardly ever stayed in cars more than 5 minutes and I'd get 3 to 5 dollars a time". At age 17., Joan becomes a full fledged prostitute, operating out of a house, with Johnny serving as her pimp. After Johnny thinks Joan is holding out money on him, he stabs her, flees to Detroit, and Joan goes to see a quack doctor to be treated. At this point, Joan stopped prostituting, and tries "boosting" (stealing from department stores) and is arrested and sentenced to 5 years in jail. Upon her parole to Boston, Joan absconds to the streets of New York and quickly resumes prostitution, which she partakes in for the rest of this book.

On a brief trip to the Southwest, while working in various houses of prostitution, Joan discovers heroin in New Orleans. She wrote: "I knew damn well what it would do to me too. I tried to tell myself I was too strong to get hooked. But I really knew what would happen. God, I must have known. By the time I returned to New York though, I was a junkie and that was that". The story continues with Joan vividly detailing the tricks of her trade as well as the ugly truth of drug addiction. The hard part about reading this book is that every chance Joan gets to break free of this life is followed by an even bigger relapse. Beatings by pimps and johns, the pain of withdrawal, fear of the law, and false, leecherous friends and associates give the reader a roller coaster ride of emotions making one thank God this book is only a vicarious experience!

Joan gives amazing insight to the inner world of a prostitute. She writes what she feels men really are in the eyes of a "working girl". Joan writes: "I know men differently from the way other women do. As a prostitute I see them at their rottenest. I wish I didn't know them as well as I do. All I have to do today, after the experiences I've had, is to look into a man's eyes and I can tell what he is and what he is thinking. I don't know, I sometimes feel all men are degenerates. Even those who claim to love their wives". And her feelings for the johns? Joan explains: "Most johns will come to prostitutes and take what they can get. I hate them. I only get a kick out of conning them. In some ways, it's the only kick I get-talking them into coming with me and making believe I'm passionate when, all the time, I'd like to spit in their faces!" Joan even rates her johns. To clarify, Joan writes: I find old, ugly men to be the best lovers. Not that any of them could please me. I guess I have my heart closed to a man so long as I know he's a trick. But old, ugly men are more gentle". However, the bottom line with Joan is: "I hate most of my tricks so much, I couldn't kiss one for a million dollars. Well, for a million dollars, maybe I could. Every whore has her price".

As I've mentioned at the outset of this review, if you are looking for a happy ending to this book, pass on reading "Nobody Cries For Me". In fact, I had to buy 2 copies, and they both fell apart on me from age as I was reading it for purposes of writing this review! This book was written before I was born, and writes about the world's "oldest profession", a social problem that will never be eradicated. However, if you are looking for an interesting description of what the life of a prostitute was like in the late 1950's, this is an interesting introspection into the mind of a wayward woman with a wayward life, revealing her sociopathy in a lucid, emotionally scathing fashion I would highly recommend!