Hiring a stripper to read The Devil’s Triangle is an in-your-face move, but there are also some layers to it. The first is artistic. Juxtaposing a narrative about an evil political plot and 1980s teen stream-of-consciousness with a rich feminine voice would work brilliantly. Two opposite elements that produce something dynamic.

Another is more personal. My high school friends and I weren’t drug addicts and rapists, just 1980s teenagers indulging in good clean fun (as well as a lot of studying and playing sports). The belly dancer/stripper was never touched—nobody even said anything particularly lewd. I heard she laughed when she later saw the “photo spread” of the party we ran in our underground newspaper The Unknown Hoya. In one shot our music teacher is looking her directly in the chest. Caption: “That’s definitely not a b-flat.” Having a lady whose stage name is Candy read my book is a big Fuck You to the killjoys who tried to shame us about being healthy young men.

Finally, there’s the punk ethos of making a sharp social critique using blunt instruments. Punk has come to mean a bunch of kids in a band screaming and playing loudly. In the 1980s punk meant to intelligently criticize the politics, religion and crappiness of your country and your life. A stripper is a meta-commentary on the real whores in this D.C.—not prep school kids or dancing girls, but the politicians.