Blue Money. Janet Capron

New York City, 1971, a balmy August evening: Just seven blocks from her childhood home, a young woman walks into a Park Avenue apartment and into the troubled arms of her first trick. So begins Blue Money —a mostly true account of life in New York's gritty downtown scene— and an intimate, no-holds-barred portrait of prostitution in the lawless era before AIDS and the War on Drugs. Janet quickly embraces «the Life» and despite a ferocious addiction to speed and semi-frequent hallucinations, she manages to keep things professional, whether she's dressed as a genie at the Sultan's Retreat or playing Eve in a live sex show. But her past is catching up to her, and the fast life can’t go on forever. The brothels and ginmills become increasingly hard to navigate as the streets turn violent and her own intense love affairs collapse. Janet Capron’s voice is bold, darkly comedic, and explicit, offering a complicated depiction of what it means to be truly liberated even in the face of her own radical descent into Avenue C penury and addiction.