By Leslie Lindsay
A first-hand look at street life and prostitution in 1970s New York City is as bold and daring and explicit as you might imagine, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.
I can honestly say: I’ve never read anything like BLUE MONEY. It is not one of those books you’re going to recommend to your book club. Or maybe you are; there’s plenty to discuss. It’s probably not one you’d give to your mom, either. But there are definitely ‘mommy issues’ intertwined.
So why did I read BLUE MONEY? Because, sex. It’s true. We love sex. We love to understand its many forms, its motivations, and what happens when it’s peddled out as a commodity. But that wasn’t my only motivation for reading. I also have a fascination with 1970s NYC and wanted a gritty glimpse into the inner workings of the city. BLUE MONEY gave me that. Also, I enjoy memoir and have a thing with reading books that must be terrifying to write.
Janet Capron is a hero in many ways. She bares her soul in BLUE MONEY; her love life, her family life, her drug and alcohol addictions, her trading sex for money. Could you strip down to your core (literally) and share some of your most troubling–most horrifying–moments with the public? I don’t think I could. 
BLUE MONEY is absolutely thrumming with the grit of NYC. At times I was sure I could smell the garbage in the alleyways. While the book is ultimately about a death of sorts (of character), it’s alive, pulsing on every word, every sentence; it’s highly introspective and well-written.
Bold. Crackling. Raw. Explicit. Seedy. Vivid.
We see her go from an ‘economy slut’ a PRETTY WOMAN type of call girl, but there are peaks and valleys, brushes with drugs, live sex shows, massage parlors, marriage, grief, and so much more.
Please join me in welcoming Janet to the blog couch.
Leslie Lindsay: Janet, I finished the book last night, I have to say—wow! For so many reasons. Mostly, I’m amazed that you were able to so completely bare your soul within these pages. Not many would. Why this story, why now?
Janet Capron: First of all, thank you, Leslie, for inviting me. I love what you have to say about BLUE MONEY! And thank you for calling me a hero. If there were any heroics involved, it was unintentional. I didn’t set out to bare my soul, but that’s where the material took me.
A wonderful Columbia writing-workshop professor, J. R. Humphreys, said, “You will always have the present of course, and you can always recall your childhood, but your twenties will slip away.” BLUE MONEY is the story of my twenties. Aside from wanting to write about those years while I could still remember them, I was hoping women would be curious to learn more about the actual experience of prostitution.
The world wasn’t ready for my story right away. It took a while to find a home for the book. Hooray for my publisher, Unnamed Press!
“Those who appreciate trigger warnings may not appreciate this book. But for anyone else, Capron’s eloquent and electric memoir of radical feminism, avid prostitution, and the wish for old-fashioned love will be hard to put down.”
L.L.: So I have to back up a bit: you grew up on Park Avenue. You had every advantage, yet you didn’t go to college right away at the ‘traditional’ time; you left for a life on the streets, a pretty unique gap year(s), don’t you think? Tell us more about the why.
Janet Capron: I’m glad you asked. I’m sure everybody wonders about that. When I started writing BLUE MONEY, I discovered it was hard to understand myself let alone explain why I turned to prostitution. Let me begin by saying I did have to earn a living. 
While I grew up surrounded by luxury, the money, which was my grandfather’s, didn’t make it very far—by the time my grandmother died, almost the entire fortune was gone. In those days, money was different too. People could live well on a lot less. Today, more than likely anyone on Park Avenue has plenty of money to pass down to the next generation and beyond. Back then, it was entirely possible, and not out of the ordinary, to grow up there and still have to go out in the world to earn a living just like everyone else.
Add to this that I was rendered dysfunctional by alcohol and drugs and it becomes easier to understand how, with the prodding of my Svengali (“Michael McClaren” in the book)—and armed with the rationale that hooking was a valid protest against the double standard—I gravitated to “The Life.”
Truth is I wasn’t fit for polite society.
By the way, I started out at Bennington College (barely mentioned “Pendleton” in the book), but, after a year and a half, they asked me to leave.
L.L.: At one point in the story, your madam, Evelyn says, “Get out of here, go hustle the intellectuals at Columbia.” You said something like, “I hate intellectuals, Columbia especially.” And yet…and yet…you have a degree in creative writing from the very institution. Can you talk about that, please?
Janet Capron: A kind of a wink at my beloved Alma Mater. In fact I did have that very conversation with a madam. At the time of the book, I was rebelling, trying to commit class suicide. Columbia was a symbol of the bourgeoisie and therefore despicable.
Not to give away the ending, but, obviously, I didn’t die in the street. Finally, I sobered up, and right away, a friend, one of my best friends to this day, announced that I was going back to school with him, to Columbia, which is what I did. By staying on the Dean’s List, I managed to win scholarships and graduate with honors (goes to show what a difference sobriety can make). Then I went onto Columbia’s Graduate School of the Arts for an MFA in Creative Writing.
L.L.: I just finished [writing] a memoir myself. It was hard for all the reasons we know writing is hard, but also because fleshing out those memories is so emotionally draining. Are you glad you shared your story? Were there ever times you wished you hadn’t, or perhaps wished you had done differently in the storytelling process?
Janet Capron: Aha! No wonder you ask such good questions! You’ve been there. It is a bitch isn’t it to stay emotionally true to experience—any experience. Proust called it ‘le moi profonde.’ The same workshop teacher I mentioned earlier said writing memoir is like learning how to live under water.
There is one particularly harrowing scene toward the end of BLUE MONEY that I had no intention of including. My mother, who was also a writer, convinced me to do it. She told me that if I were going to tell the truth, I had to tell the whole story; otherwise I would be painting life in the street as just fun and games. I knew she was right. While I was doing it, for those couple of days, I couldn’t sleep. In spite of the material, I was still surprised how difficult it was to write.
L.L.: The drugs, the sex, the grit. I was reading and so worried. I think this is what propels readers to keep turning the pages; that sense of urgency. This was all before AIDS and the War on Drugs. Did any of that occur to you at the time? Were you worried about STDs, getting caught with drugs, etc. or was it really such a different time?
Janet Capron: Urgency—that’s a great word for it. People got busted and put away—my ex-husband narrowly escaped that—but on the whole we weren’t afraid. In fact, those of us who just used were pretty brazen. Drugs were everywhere. In spite of Viet Nam, the 60s was about strength in numbers, innocence, flower power, etc. The 70s caught a lot of us off guard—it was about disillusion—the disintegration of the counter-culture, which perfectly mirrored my own.
However, both the late 60s and 70s were also about liberation, especially for women. And yes, that era really was a complete anomaly. When I came of age, there were no STDs that couldn’t be instantly cured with one shot. And The Pill was new—freeing women up in a way that would have been inconceivable only a short time before BLUE MONEY begins in 1971. We, my generation, were on the front lines of the sexual revolution. Everything aligned to make it so.
L.L.: What’s keeping you awake at night now?
Janet Capron: A lot—mortality or how the book’s doing, but I also worry about losing touch with reality, which is so easy to do here in the West Village. I think about: 1) Mass incarceration and the systemic murder of colonized Africans in our midst. I can’t afford to ignore what’s happening in the inner city, even if it seems far away and practically out of sight, because I could be next; 2) Endless wars, also far away and practically out of sight, continuously waged to gird our economy and sustain the empire; 3) The disappearing Monarch butterflies as much as rising oceans and the threat of fracking; and 4) of course, our unhinged president.
I feel as though I have to live in denial a lot of the time just to get on with life.
L.L.: Janet, it’s been such a pleasure and I wish you much success with BLUE MONEY. Is there anything I forgot to ask, but should have?
Janet Capron:
Q: Is there a next book?
A: Yes! I’m writing it now and hope I’ll have an opportunity to talk to you about it down the road.
Thank you, Leslie, for your wonderful critique of BLUE MONEY and your provocative, interesting questions! I look forward to your memoir.
For more information about the book, to connect with Janet via social media, or to purchase a copy of BLUE MONEY, please see:
- Website
- Twitter: @unnamedpress
- Twitter: @tenajnorpac
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- BAM!
- Indie Bound
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Janet Capron is a writer based in New York City. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Blue Money is her first book.
You can connect with me, Leslie Lindsay, via these social media hang-outs:
LOVE IT? SHARE IT!
[Cover and author image courtesy of Unnamed Press and used with permission. Students outside at Columbia University retrieved from usnews.com, vintage Park Ave postcard from , women’s lib march from ourbodiesourselves.com image of 1971 NYC from flickr, all on 10.18.17. “Reading is my Superpower” from L. Lindsay’s personal archives]
Leslie A. Lindsay| Writer & Creative 