What Does One Do With 100 Whores?

Today, I'm proud to announce the release of an unusual new book, 100 Whores, by my friend and Lambda Literary Award winning author, Mykola Dementiuk. The book excited me because it reminded me of the output of one of my all-time favorite authors, Charles Bukowski.

This is what Mick himself has to say about this very unusual collection:

In the fall of 2006 I began working on a Christmas present for Sally Miller, my editor at Synergy Press, who had published three of my books, Times Queer, Baby Doll, and Selected Tales. During her editing process on these books Sally would work me to the bone; good thing it was by email and phone because I doubt if I could have survived that kind of regimentation in real life. But working with Sally was a treat, I sure learned a hell of a lot, and I wanted to show my thankfulness and appreciation.

How to do that? That October I began 100 Whores, a memoir of my trysts with the whores which thronged the streets around 3rd Avenue and 12th, 13th, and 14th Streets in New York City during the 1960’s. These stories were written fast (but edited slowly), with little going on and quickly coming to an end, just like the prostitute assignations I had taken part in. It took me three months, one day per story, to relive those journeyings in my head as I got them all down, more or less.

I was there when the whores were everywhere — the pimps, the johns, the winos, the alcoholics, the drug addicts — until you get a headache just thinking about it. Well, the headaches are gone, the area is a much different place, but I still miss those days and events, no matter how crazy or dangerous they were . . .

Goin’ out, honey? she asked.
Yes, I certainly am! I replied.
And we went off together . . . 


Of course, William Vollmann’s Whores for Gloria, the Tralala section in Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, and Edward Field’s Variety Photoplays were great motivators when I first started writing and dreamed of being published one day. In late 1989 after I finished my first novel Holy Communion, I traveled to Europe and saw the end of the Berlin Wall, but I still felt empty and joyless. My novel had drained me.

I was pissed and looked at the world through jaundiced eyes, hating all women and detesting any exhibition of friendship or love. What rot! I thought, turning down women in which I happened to read something secret about me, namely that in the end, they liked me. I fled like a coward . . . I locked myself in my room every night and wrote stories about women. “The Dildo,” “Cry Baby,” “Girl on Cardboard,” and on and on. These psychological glimpses into women as whores calmed me greatly and eased the tension I was feeling. Story by story, betrayal by betrayal, love affair by love affair, the stories came out almost at full speed. Much like 100 Whores, the whoreporn stories are part of my life.  Mykola Dementiuk
July 1, 2010

And here's a little taste of just one of 100 Whores:

Rainy Afternoon On a rainy afternoon I told the regular lunch crowd that I had things to do, and with them looking slyly at each other, I went off to 3rd Avenue, a few blocks away.

It didn’t take long before I saw a whore coming umbrella-less up the street. The rain had increased but she walked unconcerned, letting the rivulets stream on her body and dress, which was plastered to her. I was hard before she came near me.

“Goin’ out, sister?” I asked from under my umbrella.

She looked at me, smiled faintly, and shrugged, “Guess so, I don’t care. Where to? . . . ”

I said, “There’s a hotel down the street. Let’s go there.”

She thought about that and said, “Nah, let’s do it in the rain, okay?”

I looked at her a bit puzzled when she said, “Take it or leave it, it’s up to you.”

What could I do? I was already drenched, as she was, too. “Okay, but where? Can’t do it in the street, you know.”

The heavy rain beat down her face, but she shrugged. “Why not? Let’s go to the roof; I like it very much up there.”

I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t. We entered a 3rd Avenue building and went upstairs. Normally the sight of a woman’s legs will arouse me, but the water dripping off her as we climbed gave me a different kind of arousal. It was like she was melting and only the freshness and wetness could revive her. I was pretty stiff climbing up after her.

We were on the roof in no time. The heavy clouds and the darkness only intensified what we were feeling. . . . Too bad there wasn’t any thunder and lightning. . . .

It was fast, but well worth it, and I didn’t go back to work. Guess I had enough; I got fired a few days later anyway.


Leave a comment below (with a way to reach you) and I'll see that the publisher of 100 Whores enters you into a contest to win one free copy of 100 Whores. Or, if you prefer to pay for it, you can buy your copy here.