The Hop: A Novel

by Diana Clarke

Overview

“A fresh ode to sisterhood and sexual agency that crackles with verve and wit. I couldn't put it down.”—Gabriela Garcia, author of the New York Times bestseller and Good Morning America Pick Of Women and Salt

"Clarke refuses to turn this story into a morality play. . . [and her] newly rich and famous [protagonist] doesn’t turn away from sex work. Instead, she uses her new freedom to imagine what sex work might look like if its practitioners were truly empowered and autonomous. Like Clarke’s debut, this is technically adventurous, politically relevant, and emotionally engaging." —Kirkus, Starred Review

A page-turning feminist novel that tells the story of a poor scrappy girl from rural New Zealand who grows reluctantly into a sex icon, the face of a movement, and a mother, all at the same time.

Kate Burns grows up wanting attention from her Ma, but her Ma wants only money and Kate learns how to get both. She and her childhood friend, Lacey, run kissing lessons for cash in the janitor’s closet of Fenbrook High, and just like that, they find themselves in the sex work industry. From there, they go on to work at The Purple Panther, a strip club in Auckland. When Ma dies of cancer, Kate discovers that the men her Ma was always inviting over to their home were, in fact, clients. Ma was no stranger to sex work either. 

Following in Ma’s footsteps, Kate heads to Nevada where she picks up a job at America’s most prestigious brothel: The Hop. In her new life as a Bunny, Kate searches for an identity she can perform—the other Bunnies include a goth, a housewife, a cheerleader, a rebel, not to mention Betty, a trans beauty queen, Mia, a Japanese cosplayer, and Rain, a dominatrix. Kate becomes Lady Lane. The girls at The Hop are more fantasy than fact, and performance is always more perfect than the real. Kate is a natural and quickly rises through the ranks to become the bestselling Bunny and the owner, Daddy’s favorite. But when ten street hookers are killed in a nearby city, just bodies with no names, Lady joins her sister Bunnies in mourning and begins to see things in a new light.

Lady’s success breeds scandal and unwanted fame, deeply affecting her, transforming her life and The Hop forever. Diana Clarke’s provocative second novel is subversive in the very best way, an unforgettable work of fiction with a radical message about women that couldn’t be more important.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063089129
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	80,549
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Diana Clarke, a New Zealander, holds an MFA from Purdue University, where Roxane Gay was her thesis adviser, and a PhD from the University of Utah. She made her literary debut with the novel Thin Girls, and her work has been published in prestigious literary publications, including Glimmer Train, the Rumpus, Black Warrior Review, the Master’s Review, and Hobart. The Hop is her second novel. She is a professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Canberra, Australia.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/06/2022

Clarke (Thin Girls) tracks a poor New Zealander as she rises to stardom and becomes a symbol of the sex industry in this ambitious and addictive feminist tale. Growing up, Lady Lane (née Kate Burns) has to abide by one simple rule: whenever a “manfriend” of her mother, Merrill shows up at their house, she is to disappear. Still, Kate never judges Merrill because Kate, too, “underst the power of desire,” leading her to cofound the Sugar Club with her friend, in which they give paid kissing lessons to their classmates. This attempt at making money to help Merrill with expenses evolves and eventually prepares Kate for her gig as a stripper at a club and then for becoming a “bunny” at The Hop, a Moonlite BunnyRanch–inspired legal brothel in Nevada. Here, Kate (as Lady Lane) finds love, sisterhood, and fame as she starts to speak up about the decriminalization of sex work (“then maybe it would be made legal in the world, and then maybe there wouldn’t be so many girls working the streets and getting attacked and raped and murdered”). With a complicated mother-daughter relationship, unconditional friendships, disappointments, and a bold stance on the sex industry, Clarke’s novel consistently stirs the head and the heart. This is a great achievement. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (June)

Publishers Weekly

THE HOP is a fresh ode to sisterhood and sexual agency that crackles with verve and wit. I couldn't put it down.”                                            — Gabriela Garcia, author of the New York Times Bestseller Of Women and Salt

"A gorgeously rendered and deeply engrossing snapshot of contemporary sex work."  — Booklist

"Clarke refuses to turn this story into a morality play…[and her] newly rich and famous [protagonist] doesn’t turn away from sex work. Instead, she uses her new freedom to imagine what sex work might look like if its practitioners were truly empowered and autonomous. Like Clarke’s debut, this is technically adventurous, politically relevant, and emotionally engaging."   — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[An] ambitious and addictive feminist tale… With a complicated mother-daughter relationship, unconditional friendships, disappointments, and a bold stance on the sex industry, Clarke’s novel consistently stirs the head and the heart. This is a great achievement.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A formally inventive and politically subversive novel" — The New Yorker

From the Publisher

THE HOP is a fresh ode to sisterhood and sexual agency that crackles with verve and wit. I couldn't put it down.”                                           

Gabriela Garcia

09/01/2022

Clarke's (Thin Girls) second novel follows Kate, a dauntless young woman from New Zealand who leaves her troubles behind to make a name for herself at Nevada's premiere brothel, "The Hop." The narrative unfolds through first-person accounts and interview fragments, which Clarke expertly weaves together. Kate is the primary speaker, and narrator Taryn Ryan relays her character's story in an expressive, sensitive style with an excellent New Zealand accent. Important figures in Kate's life, such as childhood friends, fellow "Bunnies," and clients add dimension and plot revelations in smaller segments. Listeners first meet captivating and unapologetic Kate through her recollections of childhood, witnessing her evolution as she redefines family, friendship, and personal power. Throughout the audiobook, supporting narrators Olivia Mackenzie-Smith, Adam Verner, Laura Petersen, and Carolina Hoyos add a cinematic quality to the novel. Some characters embrace a tell-all, gossipy style; some are charged with emotion; others' accounts are defensive or dry. Each enhances the interview format and seamlessly transports listeners through different scenes and timelines. VERDICT The diverse cast of characters combined with thought-provoking content make for a successful and heartfelt audiobook that is well worth purchasing.—Halie Theoharides

Library Journal - Audio

★ 2022-05-25
The author of Thin Girls (2020) turns from disordered eating to sex work in her second novel.

The novel opens with a Vogue features editor gushing about Lady Lane—about her hair, her skin, the way she moves—and complaining about the fact that Lady refuses to share any information at all about her past. She ends with the line: “There’s talk of a multimillion-dollar book deal on the table for Lady Lane’s biography, but no one can get her to agree to tell the whole story.” In the next line, Lady herself takes over the narration. Her first words are, “I’ll start from the beginning.” The tension between one sentence and the next is amusing, but it also hints at what’s to come. This is the “whole story.” It’s the story Lady chooses to tell about herself. But it’s also the stories that other people tell about her—and the fact that these stories are valuable currency is an inevitable product of her celebrity. Lady describes an impoverished childhood in New Zealand, the death of her loving but unreliable mother, and her decision to move to the United States to work as a Bunny in a legal brothel in Nevada. She recounts childhood crushes and how she began charging money for kisses as a girl. And she offers a look inside the sex industry. But there are other voices here, too, co-workers, friends, and other people who know her. Their stories add texture to Lady’s account, and they often contradict her memory of events or her sense of herself. The plot turns on her realization that, although she made the choice to work at The Hop, the brothel’s owner regards her as a commodity, essentially interchangeable with the woman she replaces. The choice to work for him is a one-time exchange; making this choice means giving him license to choose how he uses her. Liberating herself—and her fellow Bunnies—will require a full-scale revolution. Although the narrative ends with some of the trappings of a conventional happily-ever-after, they are hard-won, and Clarke refuses to turn this story into a morality play. Newly rich and famous, Lady doesn’t turn away from sex work. Instead, she uses her new freedom to imagine what sex work might look like if its practitioners were truly empowered and autonomous.

Like Clarke’s debut, this is technically adventurous, politically relevant, and emotionally engaging.

Kirkus Reviews