Brief Book Reviews: August 2025

BRIEF BOOK REVIEWS

Popular Books Relevant to Mental Health

An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

Charlotte Shane; Simon & Schuster, 2024

192 pages; $25.99 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Charlotte Shane’s career as a sex worker gives a totally different perspective of infidelity—that is, cheating husbands paying for sex. Shane’s sexual experience starts with her interest in boys as a teenager, transitions to creepy guys in video chat rooms, and finally morphs into a lucrative escort business she commands and controls.

The ever-present protentional of violence, stalking, and sexually transmitted diseases gives this fascinating story a background of tension and suspense. However, the author is not a professional writer and her writing style is lackluster. Ostensibly, the book is written in the hope that couples will discuss their sexual difficulties before finding sex elsewhere. While that is an excellent suggestion for couples, it seems like an excuse to write about a mildly shocking and sometimes titillating, behind-the-scenes view of high-end sex work—not that there is anything wrong with that.

In 2020, Shane writes that, in addition to her regular clients, she had sex with 53 men who she had previously never met. While a bit shocking, perhaps the most startling aspect, from our standpoint, is how mentally healthy she appears to be. She is not addicted, does not have a mood disorder, nor is she reacting to trauma. The essence of mental illness is functional impairment, and she does not appear to have any. The book raises the question: is it possible to be a sex worker and mentally healthy?

Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running from Madness

Suzy Favor Hamilton; Harper Collins, 2015

304 pages; $18.99 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

At the University of Wisconsin, Suzy Favor Hamilton was a phenom in middle distance running. Her natural skills and relentless determination enabled her to represent the US at the Olympics in Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney. Unbeknownst to everyone, she was tormented with anxiety and inner turmoil. After having a child, she was overcome with obsessions and depression. After a suicide attempt, she finally called a psychiatrist.

Hamilton describes an emergency appointment with an extremely popular psychiatrist, who conducted a hurried evaluation in the limited time. She was diagnosed with depression, a diagnosis many of us would make, if we had not asked about the history of mental illness in her family. Hamilton was started on Prozac. Further trouble started after a few years of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor treatment.

She began booking regular trips to Vegas without her husband. It did not go well. Hamilton presents the paradox of patients who feel better, but are functionally doing worse. She thought she had finally “found herself” and saw no reason to rush back to her psychiatrist. She thought her husband was the source of the problems in her marriage. It is sad story, but one of those case studies that can enhance our clinical knowledge.

Hamilton is open about her troubles and presents a fast-paced story, but she is not a practiced writer. She allocates too much space to events that do not contribute to the story, a common problem in memoirs. Specifically, she spends too much time describing her wild escapades in Vegas, but that is probably what her publisher wanted. Her epilogue, after finally receiving the correct diagnosis, is too brief for those in our field. Most of us would like additional chapters with details of her long recovery, and her internal struggles to overcome the shame and guilt.

Dr Higgins is an affiliate associate professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.