Book description
Suburban, middle-class, and from a good family - this is what makes
Joanne Brodie's story all the more shocking. It is the dual account of
the relentless seduction of the impulse to self-destruct and, at the
same time, the human spirit's desperate desire to survive. Brodie is
unremittingly honest in recounting a life that saw her take the
deceptively easy and palliative path that leads to prescription drug
addiction and the ripple effect of its devastating impact on the people
in her world. To the outside world a successful businesswoman with an
enviable career and the trappings to accessorise it, how then did the
woman with the world at her feet find herself working in a brothel and,
finally, running an S&M parlour from her home? Brodie's story is
never boring and often painful, and throughout it all she maintains a
wry tone that lends humour to her serious subject. Whether she's
exposing the many doctors and psychiatrists who reached all too easily
for the prescription pad or describing the high flying, cocaine-fuelled
lives of the rich and powerful circles she once partied in, she never
compromises on the truth. And as she moves from gallery owner to
prostitute to dominatrix and eventually to counsellor to many who sought
her help and advice on their own lifetime journeys to recovery, her
shrewd, original and on occasion eccentric insights will give courage
and inspiration to all.
