The Happy Hooker's Official Website
Xaviera Hollander - The woman behind the Myth
In every era, there are just a tiny handful of individuals who change the way we think or act. Xaviera Hollander did not invent sex: she was one of the leading spirits who brought it out of the closet. Her first book, The Happy Hooker, published as long ago as 1971, has sold more than 16 million copies and is still intriguing new readers by its humor, its zest for life and above all for its downright honesty: it remains a landmark in the struggle for sexual freedom and for freedom of expression. What sort of woman could become the most influential "madam" in New York, such an apparent threat to the establishment that after being persecuted by the Knapp Commission, set up to investigate malpractice and corruption, she was "invited" to quit the United States?Ironically, her earliest years were spent in captivity, a Japanese prison camp in Indonesia where her father, a psychiatrist, was head of a hospital.