Review of V.N. Alexander's "The Girlie Playhouse"

As goes the timeless Zen introspection, if a stripper strips alone in the woods, is she really stripping? That is the burning question which V. N. Alexander seeks to answer with her latest The Girlie Playhouse: A Novel (2026).

From its poignant outset, you are whisked into a who-done-it and have to work backwards through an intriguing narrative to understand what went wrong. The narrator is Pixie, who is a stripper. The politically correct term nowadays is “exotic dancer,” but the character refers to herself as a stripper, so that settles it. Pixie is in fact the daughter of a stripper and was orphaned at four years old when her mother was murdered. As an adult working at a cabaret called the Girlie Playhouse, Pixie befriends another stripper named Trixie, who is the eccentric protagonist and reminds Pixie of her departed mother. Pixie, Trixie… it almost sounds like the beginning of the line-up of dwarves in Tolkien’s Hobbit, but rest assured there’s no Dicksy, who’d probably be the trans stripper.

The story unfolds as Trixie becomes romantically involved with a regular customer named Max. From what I understand, the cardinal rule about strippers is that you admire from afar and tip them well, but never date them, so already Max is off to a bad start, and it only gets more complicated from there. After a while, red-capped female conservatives called the Gideon Angels converge on the Girlie Playhouse to protest female objectification and exploitation, which comes as news to the high-earning, merry crew of seven strippers. The Girlie Playhouse is located in the fictional township of Newgate Cross, which sounds Bible-belty, but it is actually in the Northeast, which in my mind is New Jersey, since everything fun happens there!

Through the engaging story, feminist themes are developed and examined. You contemplate whether a stripper is dancing for the customer, or at him, if not through him. Quintessentially, the novel positively explores feminine sexuality in a way which may jar modern third-wave feminists, who seemingly perceive power dynamics between the sexes as a zero-sum game with oppressors and oppressed.

Review of a novel about sex disadvantages me as a married man, ‘cause what would I know about that stuff?, but it’s been a worthwhile divergence from my bailiwick of sociopolitical non-fiction to read this endearing story and reflect on whether my “male gaze” helps to affirm the woman on whom it could be fixed… or impoverishes me (especially when on the sly I ogle through steamed-over sunglasses). More valuably as a male reader, the novel invites evaluation of preconceived notions about strippers and sex work in general, towards the realization that not every damsel is in distress, seeking rescue by a white knight.

With V.N. Alexander’s Girlie Playhouse, you are in for an exhilarating page-turner with a meaningful pay-off!