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Roads from the Ashes: An Odyssey in Real Life on the Virtual Frontier, by Megan Edwards

Book Review: Breaking My Silence

Breaking My Silence: Confessions of a Rat Pack Party Girl and Sex Trade Survivor, by Jane McCormick and Patti Wicklund

I just finished reading this disarming and painfully revealing memoir of a high-end Vegas callgirl. I followed Jane McCormick, ably assisted by the writing talents of Patti Wicklund, through her childhood, which was marred by her stepfather’s horrible abuse. It’s difficult to read about a full-grown Marine molesting a three-year-old, and even more depressing to follow along as the sexual mistreatment continued over a period of years. Sadder yet is the point at which a young Jane finally blows the whistle, only to be faced with disbelief and further pain.

Happier is the spirit with which Jane faces life after a teen-age marriage and two fast-appearing babies. Determined to realize her “white picket fence” dreams even though her husband was a beer-drinking philanderer, she did everything within her power to make money. Armed with jaw-dropping good looks and not much else – she never even graduated from high school – Jane pursued opportunities that eventually resulted in a career most people learn about only through Hollywood movies. Swiftly moving through brief gigs as a cocktail waitress in Hollywood, she made her way to Las Vegas. Sin City in the early sixties was the perfect place for a knockout seventeen-year-old with fake ID to realize some serious cash, and “Baby Jane” made the most of it.

Vegas pit bosses soon counted on Jane to “take care of” their highest rollers. Eventually, this meant rubbing shoulders (wink, wink) with celebrities like Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and even the actor who played Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy.” Vegas in the sixties – if you talk to those who hung out here then – was nirvana.

The role of arm candy, however, is a tough one, no matter how generous the “gifts” left on the nightstand. Not only are you constantly looking over your shoulder to see if the PIs hired by angry wives are after you, there’s the whole party scene that sucks you into serious drugs and alcohol. Jane vividly – and again, painfully – describes her relationships with men who were more interested in her ability to cart home truckloads of cash than providing a nurturing environment where she could raise her daughters. The last straw was a generous but controlling Mafia-connected sugar daddy whose goons scared her onto a plane in New York.

Yes, this is compelling reading. If you are interested in insider tidbits about the Rat Pack and other sixties Vegas phenomena, this book will not disappoint. Whether it will achieve the author’s stated goal of keeping other young women from the sex trade, I cannot predict. I rather think it won’t, however, which draws me back to the sadness of the first few chapters. What’s a three-year-old to do when her stepfather tells her he wants to touch her “there,” and he’ll kill her whole family if she tells? And what’s an eighteen-year-old supposed to say when a rich old dude offers her a thousand bucks to “take him around the world” when she’s got two babies to support? Jane McCormick may want Breaking My Silence to be a cautionary tale, but, like the white picket fence she longed for as a young mother, her dream may go unrealized. Her story is, unfortunately, a timeless one.

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Jane McCormick will be appearing at B. Dalton Booksellers in the Galleria Mall at 1300 W. Sunset Road in Henderson (map) on April 21st, 2008, at 7:00 p.m.

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