About 23 years ago, when I set foot on an adult movie set for the first time, it occurred to me that someone should write a novel set in Porn Valley. Since, a few have tried it, mostly men, and mostly to poor effect. Take, for example, Chuck Palahniuk’s Snuff, a terrible novel in which terrible things happen and nobody wins. Or, there’s Irvine Welsh’s Porno, which is also a novel and bad. And let’s not forget Martin Amis’s Yellow Dog, which is also a novel and bad, but at least he did the legwork first and visited the adult industry for the now defunct Talk magazine to produce this work of journalism about it.
Suffice to say, the world is still waiting for the Ulysses of Porn Valley.
Recently, I decided to give it another go. I’ve tried writing a novel about Porn Valley before, but it never seemed like I had it quite right. So, where to start? A novel seemed daunting. Heck, even a novella seemed daunting. Cue “The Wizard of Oz”: "It’s always best to start at the beginning.” To start, I wrote down three possible first lines in my notebook. But which one was right? To find out, I posted them to Instagram and invited my followers to opine on which first line they thought was the best one.
The candidates were:
“Way down in Porn Valley, where the woodsmen inject their dicks with Caverject and the reverse cowgirls roam …”
“The pornographer lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering why he wasn’t dead.”
“If you drive over the Cahuenga Pass, you’ll find the San Fernando Valley spread out before you like a girl.”
#2 won.
I’ve actually written about this pornographer character before, as far back as the early 2000s, when I wrote a short story with the same name as the title of my short story collection: You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You? The central character of this novel is similar to the main character in that story. Same guy, different time.
In any case, I’m 2,429 words into what will likely be a 24,000-word novella.
The title?
THE PORNOGRAPHER.
The story unfolds over the course of a single day, and the world in which it’s set is similar to ours but different. In this alternate reality, technology has taken over in the wake of an unnamed plague, and the way that technology is being used in the adult industry is generating some unexpected complications for the humans who toil in the smut mines. It’s dark, and fun to write. A twisted escape during a complicated time.
As for the image that appears at the top of this post, I shot it in the San Fernando Valley in a production studio where a slew of actresses were auditioning for a role in a big budget adult feature in December 2017. Many of the girls had a hard time remembering their lines. One who struggled with hers burst into tears. In reality, it’s not easy to do your job under the bright lights when everyone’s watching.
Subscribe to The Valley by clicking here. It’s free and delivered to your inbox weekly.
About me. To hire me, read this and then email me here. Subscribe to my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read my blog here. Read The Hustler Diaries here.