Girlie Playhouse — Victoria Alexander

The Girlie Playhouse is narrated by “Pixie,” the daughter of a famous cabaret dancer who was murdered by a sanctimonious preacher. In flashbacks, she describes that tragedy, which has filled her with loss and longing. Pixie admits that she has a thing for “girls with meretricious charms.” After college, she becomes a stripper herself and meets Trixie in 1992 who reminds her of her own mother. Max, a regular at the Girlie Playhouse, thought he was happily married until he saw Trixie. They begin a relationship, but we learn early on that Trixie will also end up dead, and the story unfolds as a kind of whodunnit and why. When Max wins seven million dollars in the lottery, his life and relationships get scrambled. Max takes Trixie and six other dancers away for the weekend and gives them each a red sports car. The tabloids have a field day and the strip club becomes, for a time, the fulcrum of feminist protests, frantic press coverage, and new customer influx. Max demands that Trixie ends her career as a stripper but she refuses, which contributes to her tragic undoing.