Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(132)
The kids
Like all the adults I write, the kids in this book are based on real people, their dialogue directly lifted from conversations I’ve heard and transcribed both in preparation for this book and just because. (Yes, I do transcribe real-life conversations that I find enchanting, especially when my own kids are speaking. I’d like to hold on to those memories.)
Parts of Joshua are based on my son, who also liked to read The Economist at age seven (he started at six before he could actually read, studying the charts and graphs). He still reads it (at fifteen), but now he’s made efforts to diversify his news sources. Similarly, he’s acquired an appreciation for cartoons as he’s grown older, though he eschewed them as a young child.
Like Joshua, my son always had difficulty finding other people his age who wanted to play the games he played or shared his interests—ancient civilizations, etymology / the history of language, the philosophy of governance, physics (especially the subatomic realm)—and my worries about him “fitting in” and “finding his people” still persist today (I guess Charlotte in this one regard is based on me).
Regarding The Pink Pony, strip clubs, laws, ordinances, lap dances, and so forth
Creative license was taken with what activities were and were not allowed at The Pink Pony based on local and state laws in Tennessee.
While living in Tampa, I personally knew a number of exotic dancers—many were college/post-grad students. I was always fascinated by their stories and experiences. Reality had to be altered in fictional-Tennessee for the purposes of this book so I could tell some of these stories and perspectives. Thus, I made it different because I wanted to create the ideal strip club, if such a thing were to exist. A place where the owner focused on keeping everything safe and fun rather than the other end of the spectrum, i.e., dangerous and exploitative.
Green Valley exists in a fictional county somewhere between Blount and Monroe counties in Tennessee. The laws and ordinances controlling strip clubs, nudity, and the serving of alcohol are not the same as Blount and Monroe because I say so.
I am fully aware that the “City of Knoxville passed a licensing ordinance in May 2005 that prohibited total nudity and touching by patrons, prohibited alcohol on the premises, limited the businesses’ hours of operations, and required the businesses and their employees to obtain licenses.” [The Free Speech Center, MTSU, July 2021] See also the Adult Oriented Establishment Act of 1998 [https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/2014/title-7/local/chapter-51/part-11]
This means counties in Tennessee mandate that dancers must be several feet from patrons at all times (no lap dances) and no alcohol can be served on the premises (no need for a bartender).
These types of laws and ordinances have been upheld in Tennessee time and time again despite “adult business owners” and entertainers suing, claiming the ordinances/laws violate free speech, etc.
SIDE NOTE
I put adult business owners in quotes above because I personally feel like the term “adult business owners” should refer to individuals who own home remodeling stores, appliance stores, and retirement portfolio / financial advisers—not strip club owners. If I tell my children that my husband and I are having an ‘adult conversation,’ it’s typically because we’re discussing how to pay for a new water heater, not how to dance mostly naked and maximize tips while serving alcohol . . . but that’s just us. To each their own.
END SIDE NOTE
One term I came across often while researching this book was “secondary effects” relating to strip clubs and other adult/sex businesses. Secondary effects basically means negative impact to a geographic area—e.g., increase in crime, decrease in property value—due to proximity to any particular business. Pawn shops, strip clubs, adult bookstores, even dollar stores have all been accused of being businesses that generate secondary effects and are therefore subject to stricter zoning laws (not everywhere in the USA, but during my research, the number of incidences/mentions felt like more than an outlier).
In summary, yes. I know Tennessee law prohibits many of the activities that occurred in this book. But I am a writer of fiction and I spent my twenties in Tampa, Florida, where the strip club laws are SIGNIFICANTLY less stringent. One might even make the argument that Tampa has “better” strip clubs than Vegas. (Define “better” for yourself . . . if you know what I mean.) I’m the writer, this is my world, I get to decide.
Moving on.
A note about Hank
I can and do write flawed romance heroes and heroines. My protagonists have been known to be violent, liars, selfish, ignorant, sneaky, stubborn, cowardly, reckless, feckless, and so forth—just like real people. I don’t write ideal people; I don’t know how because I find them boring to both write and read. That said, like all real people, my characters also live in their own little bubble of day-to-day concerns and worries. They make mistakes, can’t concern themselves with every evil occurring in the world (sorry, but that’s impossible; none of us are Wonder Woman, none of us are Superman), but—I hope—my characters are always doing their best to not cause harm within their bubble.
The only exception to this is Cletus Winston, and if you’ve read his books then you know what I mean. But I digress.
This is all to say, in order to write a strip club owner, I had to write someone who owned the club for reasons other than the enjoyment of holding power over desperate women/men/people and exploiting them. Based on my (admittedly limited) interactions with strip club owners, all of whom were male, it always felt like they wanted to own the club so they could be in proximity to women who couldn’t refuse their whims, and that made me feel sick. Again, this is my limited experience and not meant to be a sweeping statement. Obviously, not all club owners are of this ilk. #NotAllStripClubOwners