Eve Smith has spent over twenty years as a sex worker, with roles as an escort, online, in a strip club, and as a dominatrix. Under a pseudonym, she gives a documentary-style account of her experiences through her memoir, How Was It for You? But Eve is more than a sex worker: she’s a person, a partner, a mother. A tale that focuses on becoming a mother alongside the more damaging, woeful stories of treatment by clients and authorities, it’s an unapologetic and compelling book that focuses on an well-rounded individual with dexterity and humour.
A publication that will cause provocation and intrigue from the cover alone (which features a photo of an open, pink-lined purse with what looks like a single pearl inside), How Was It for You? is a considered and concisely humane deep dive into the sex industry from someone in the know, confronting the eradicating beliefs of some radical feminists and MPs.
The book’s two main threads run parallel to each other: one deals with Smith’s experience of working in a brothel that is raided by the police and having to be dragged through the courts, having been charged.
The other is about her life as a partner to Adam and soon-to-be-mother, and her contemplation of family and other influences on both her and her baby’s life.
Though written with a sassy, cynical fury, Smith also injects warmth, humour, and hope into this account and allows the reader to cultivate a wider picture of the industry and its workers. Determined and unforgiving, How Was It for You? challenges many hostile opinions while also exploring a system that makes it near impossible for those with few opportunities to thrive. And as readers, you’ll be keen to get to the end, even just to hit the hilarity that resides within the glossary alone.
How Was It for You? by Eve Smith is out on 20th June, published by Picador Books.
