This book is the West Australian Newspaper's book of the month.

The blurb:

"At the age of eighteen, Carla van Raay entered a convent to devote her life to God. By thirty-four she was earning her living as a prostitute.

As a child, Carla van Raay experienced a trauma that changed her for ever. Burdened by the weight of this terrible secret, all she wanted to do was survive. Life as a nun promised refuge from the outside world.

Carla hoped to find love and understanding within the convent walls. Instead she became enmeshed in a complex system of regulations that drove her to the brink of madness. Finally released from her vows, she escaped back into the 'real' world.

A hasty marriage and separation left Carla with a daughter to support. With few professional skills to rely on from her years as a nun, she turned to another age-old profession - prostitution. She worked as an escort to learn the ropes, then struck out on her own, setting up a massage service. God's Callgirl was born. When the seamier side of the business eventually began to assert itself, Carla embarked on a journey to uncover the dark secret of her past."

This is an extraordinary book. I am only halfway through it and I don't usually read autobiographies but, like Joe Cinque's Consolation, it is a book which both grips and horrifies.

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Hmmm - when I made my previous comments I was, as I said, only halfway through the book and I must say that it was the best part by a long way.

The book, as a whole, can be divided into three parts: Childhood until Carla left the convent, her life as a prostitute ... and her search for peace and understanding.

The first part is horrifying but gripping and I was hard-put to put the book down; the second part was boring and full of descriptions of her clients and what she did with them: and the last part was just plain boring.

Being from Perth I did recognise one of her therapists, a lady whom I like immensely because she is great fun and very funny.

I think that the second part could have been ruthlessly edited and the last part simply an appendix to round things off.

I am rating the book a five simply for the first part which was worth reading for the dreadful way that the church managed to engender guilt in the essentially guiltless; the rest doesn't rate at all.

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