REVIEW: Hannah Sward’s Strip is Emotionally Naked & Asking You to Look By Courtney Kocak

By Courtney Kocak

Hannah Sward’s Strip is a memoir about her tumultuous journey from a fractured childhood to her foray into sex work, addiction, and eventual recovery—and yes, there’s a commune. It begins, “My mom left when I was two.” This abandonment establishes the yearning at the heart of Strip. 

The story unfolds chronologically, a structure that suits the material’s natural story arcs. With concise chapters bearing intriguing titles—such as “My New Russian Mom,” “Balls Like Japanese Eggplant,” and “Dope & Bald Pussies”—the book plays into a personal preference that makes reading a breeze. In fact, it was hard to put down—addictive, even, apropos considering the subject matter.

Sward’s writing vividly captures the emotional and physical landscapes of her experiences in an authentic and accessible style. Her sentences pulse with rhythm and the prose evolves to mirror where she’s at in her journey—it’s no surprise her father was a poet. 

Early passages, like this poignant scene of childhood innocence, mingled with trauma, create a haunting juxtaposition: “Emily and me take turns playing doctor lying naked. All her dolls on shelves look down at us. I have one doll but she is still at the police station in a plastic bag and she has only one shoe.”

Later, during the throes of her addiction, the narrative voice becomes more chaotic, reflecting her unraveling: “Now here I was, two days later with no sleep, in my backyard shaking with the wind. Barefooted and barehanded I reached towards a branch… A thorn pricked my finger. Prick, pick. Prick, pick… I was caught in the vines, tearing them apart, tearing me apart. My arms were scratched, my mouth dry… and my jaw, it was very tight.” 

Sward depicts her myriad sex work experiences—escorting, stripping, sugar babying—with a nuanced approach, neither glamorizing nor condemning the industry. She acknowledges that while sex work is an empowering experience for some, for her, it was not. Refreshingly, Strip is not a feminist or conservative treatise, it’s a slice of life. 

As a narrator, Sward is both relatable and trustworthy. Her ability to combine unflinching honesty with empathy and earnestness makes it a pleasure to keep turning the page, even during her most questionable decisions. There’s something pure in her telling of even the most hardcore parts of her journey, like her first time escorting, “What I remember most about the first man was his penis smelling like baby powder and the driver waiting outside not saying a word before or after. I wondered if he had a book while he waited for me.”

The memoir’s Los Angeles chapters are particularly vivid for Angelenos, offering easy-to-place landmarks and references and a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood’s underbelly. Her relationship with her half-sister, Rilke, featured prominently during this era, provides a counterbalance to the darker elements of her story. Sward does extra work, they both audition for Sisters of Playboy, and at one point Rilke gets a part on the camp classic Showgirls.

Strip provides an intimate look at the mundane yet stifling realities of the substance abuser next door and how hard it is to get off the treadmill of addiction. Sward’s unfiltered portrayal of her addiction struggles and recovery contributes a relatable voice to the quit lit subgenre. In addition to AA, writing was a big part of Sward’s recovery. Thus, Strip isn’t just a testament to the human capacity for transformation but the therapeutic power of the art form. It’s a compelling narrative about stumbling through and ultimately overcoming (or coming to terms with) life’s obstacles.

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Courtney Kocak is a writer, podcaster, and comedian based in Los Angeles. She wrote for Amazon’s Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs and Netflix’s Know It All. Her bylines include The New York Times, LA Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, The Sun, and more. Courtney’s currently enrolled in Antioch University’s MFA program, working on a coming-of-age memoir. 

Strip: A Memoir

Born in the bohemian seventies, Hannah Sward was abandoned by her mother, and lived with her poet father on an island with no stores or cars. Kidnapped and molested by a stranger at age six, she grew up to be a stripper and a prostitute with a taste for crystal meth—which seemed to be a sure-fire way to lose weight —with stops along the way for silent gurus, sugar daddies, and drinking in the CVS bathroom before therapy sessions. Painstakingly honest, often humorous, Strip is a heartfelt memoir revealing a woman’s journey from innocence to a dark existence, and beyond it to a world of empowerment.

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Find out more about Hannah on her website https://www.hannahsward.com/

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing