They say that authors often revisit themes in their work, and that’s certainly true for me. I’ve come to believe we explore issues that don’t merely interest us, but haunt us as well. Themes are culled from the Deeper Stuff.
Anyone familiar with my Zodiac series can easily one of my haunting themes is the question of identity, and more specifically self-identity. How is it developed and embraced, what cultural and familial influences determine the traits we take on, and why it might change or be shed or even discarded at whim. I certainly try to show how my protagonist, Joanna Archer’s, self-identity influences her decision-making and actions.
Truth is, I’ve always had a sense that who I am is not who I’ll always be. That we all live not one life, but multiple lives within our one. I am not the same now as I was at twenty or thirty. I have no desire to be those ages again, either. My interests are different because I’m different, and have a gift for looking forward and rarely looking back. In short, I’m an entirely new person.
When I was young this sense of shifting identity was just a feeling that there had to be something more. Striving for that is what drove me at school, what made me want to write, and why I ultimately decided to become a mother as well. (After all, how many cocktails can you really drink? There has to be more to life than the next good time.)
People who meet me now know this: I’m the author of the Zodiac series, a mother, and a woman engaged to be married for the second time. Those are my identities (they are not listed in level of importance).
Rewind one decade earlier, though, and this was how I was defined: wife and showgirl. That’s it.
Daughter, sister, friend … yes, all those things applied, but those are permanent conditions. As for my writing, I was aspiring, but as any aspiring author can tell you, most people don’t grant you the identifying tag of writer until you’re published. (It’s nonsense, of course – if you write, you’re a writer – but try telling that to someone who doesn’t do it.)
All of this is an extremely long-winded way of introducing the trailer below, which is not about me – though I’m in it – but one of those two defining identities when I was in my 20s. When asked, I talk about being a showgirl prior to becoming an author, but more and more it feels like I’m talking about someone else. However, it once encompassed a huge part of my life. I danced in the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana for a decade, and all of the people featured on this video – save the older women and Barbara Walters – are contemporaries and friends of mine.
But the role of the showgirl in Las Vegas has changed as well. I performed in the Folies for ten years, six nights a week, two shows a night – but now there’s only one traditional showgirl show left, Bally’s Jubilee! (where I also danced for a year). If you want to look for me in the documentary trailer I’m sitting around a table at my (now) monthly “tribal” gatherings – where my Forever Friends and I gather to catch up, laugh, drink and reminisce.
I can also be seen in my 20s incarnation, singing a little ditty we made backstage. It’s a far cry from the image we presented onstage that night – a line of twelve Amazon ‘Everywomen’ moving on an eight-count, breathing as one. But it’s far more representative of who we really were, and what backstage life was like. Goofy, fun, irreverent. Young.
(If I remember correctly, this little ditty was inspired by the way society easily embraces violence and war (and shit like that), but breaks out into fainting spells and condemnation when you mention a woman’s body. Mind, the song is primitive. I blame that on the girl playing the guitar – she only knew one chord. And, yanno, we didn’t give a shit.)
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. The documentary is about the end of the showgirl era – The Last Showgirl – and they’re finishing up production now, as well as finalizing plans for a red-carpet premiere in Las Vegas. I can’t wait. It’s been long enough now that I can look back at the young woman I used to be without longing to move on, and instead give her thanks for working so hard to get me where I am now.
