THE OLDEST PROFESSION

Do the “In Brief” reviews in the book review section mean that the reviewer only briefly looks over the books reviewed rather than actually reads them? It seems so from Susan Salter Reynolds’ review of “You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again” (March 17).

Her review was so filled with inaccuracies that it seemed to me (I edited and wrote some sections of the book) that Reynolds read only parts of the book--certainly not all of it. First, she said the book was the stories of “four prostitutes.” Anyone who has read the book knows that Robin was never a prostitute, but an actress who dated a number of well-known men in Hollywood.

Second, Reynolds finds the preface to be “the voice of a world whose expectations have nothing to do with the planet Robin, Liza, Linda and Tiffany live on.” If Reynolds had read the entire book, she would have seen that the final sections in each of the women’s stories is very in sync with the preface by Lois Lee, executive director of Children of the Night. Liza and Linda, in particular, clearly express regret for their lives and hope that in “breaking the silence” and telling their stories, they will help other young women who will read them and not fall into the same traps (traps of drugs and the seduction of rich, famous or powerful but unscrupulous men) as they did.

Third, it is hard to understand why Reynolds claims the women had so may “choices” because of their “middle-class upbringing.” She must have skipped over the part about Robin and Liza’s father producing pornographic films, about the rapes that Liza suffered from a family member at age 14 (which were denied and ignored by her parents) and then a year later at the hands of a prostitute and pimp who “acted” in one of her father’s movies. Regardless of class, when sexual, emotional and other forms of abuse occur in a family, it can have a profoundly negative impact on the child’s emotional well-being and subsequent “choices” in life.

But Reynolds probably skipped those parts and jumped ahead to read about what the famous men were like in bed. Admittedly, a lot of people do that when they buy this book, but it is sad when someone employed by the Los Angeles Times to review books seems to also do so.

JOANNE PARRENT, Editor and co-author “You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again”