The Hooker's Daughter: A Boston Family's Saga
Dale Stanten, 2011
Infinity Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 978074146402
Summary
It’s been called the "oldest profession in the world." I call it everyday life.
My mother is a hooker who turns tricks in our tiny apartment. At six years old, I shudder every time the doorbell rings and rings and rings.
In our tight-knit Jewish community, my family’s behavior is not welcomed. While my mother runs her "business," my father behaves like an ostrich with his head in the sand. He barely functions. My sister, a lesbian in an era when being gay is reprehensible, is placed into a convent and then sent to a mental institution. And there is shoplifting, scamming checks, and a stolen car ring using the rabbi’s garage.
I strut through my teenage years with a display of arrogant posturing designed to conceal the internal angst of isolation, loneliness, and fear of following in my mother’s footsteps.
My fantasy is to have a cookie-cutter life. I find my life’s mate, marry, become the perfect wife and mother, yet, in my secret heart, I am still out of step. The cookie crumbles when my husband is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. He becomes blind and suffers six grueling years. As he struggles, I struggle to keep it all together. I cry for all of us.
The Hooker’s Daughter is a memoir of a life dictated by shame and discontent. It traces the path of a young woman from childhood, through bewildered adolescence, to wife, mother, widow, and successful entrepreneur. The story is about trauma, survival, and triumph.
Author Bio
• Birth—June 20, 1043
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—RN, Lynn Hospital School of Nursing
• Currently—lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and Phoenix, Arizona
While raising her young family, Dale Stanten obtained her RN degree and practiced psychiatric nursing. She parlayed her medical and extensive sales experience to become CEO of her Destination Management Company which for twenty years organized conventions, corporate events, and meetings for local, national, and international guests. Dale conducted numerous educational seminars and assisted in developing a tourism college degree program.
Dale serves on the North Shore Board of Juvenile Scholarship Aid, volunteered as a Big Sister, and is an active member of Power of Women, National Association of Women on the Rise, and The Arizona Humanities Consortium for the Arts. A life-long learner, she studies Kabbalah and Torah and shares her personal journey to encourage others to rise above their circumstances, no matter how difficult, using their inner strength to determine the course of their own lives. Dale resides in Boston and Phoenix with her husband. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Her story is about how to conquer challenges beyond those that have been made socially acceptable by society. The book is a study in human relations and emotions...Loved It. A Must Read!
Debolina Raja Gupta - BookPleasures.com
This is an engaging well-written and spectacular book and can definitely be an inspiration to those that read it. A Great Story!
Joyce Oscar - BookPleasures.com
This book does indeed get 5 stars from me. I feel like it’s a story many need to read because it shows us how our choices affect others and how others choices affect us. There are very few people who wouldn’t be affected by this book in a good way.
Katie Hal - You Brew My Tea
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think that Dale turned out to be a successful entrepreneur, given her very traumatic childhood? How much do you think is genetic (nature) verses environment and relationships with other people (nurture)?
2. Do you think there are life lessons to be learned from Dale’s dramatic life story?
3. Describe Bubbbe’s unusual behavior. How do you think it affected Mae’s life?
4. Considering the family dynamics, what challenger did the two sisters face?
5. How did Dale overcome the challenges she faced being the daughter of a hooker?
6. In the 50’s and 60’s why was being a hooker more acceptable than being gay?
7. What does the book tell us about "sister bonds?"
8. What character traits—both good and bad—do you think Dale learned from her parents and how do you think those traits shaped her life?
9. From both Mae’s and Art’s viewpoint why did their relationship survive?
10. What makes a survivor?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)