A review by hangsawoman
The Service by Frankie Miren

5.0

The Service is a rotating three-pronged device pushing through the discourse on sex worker rights in the UK - if you’re the sort of person who knows which guardian journos think which things, poisoned by the endless centrist hand-wringing, then this book carries a particular delight in its careful, ironic evisceration of that particular class. But the novel is more than just a prod at the easy Liberal SWERF. it’s pleasingly complicated and never easy. In choosing three different protagonists in three very different social positions all clustered around sex work, Miren is able to let the personalities and emotions clash in ways which can be hard to read but are never anything but highly readable.
The Service has some great ‘no please don’t say that oh god’ moments which made me physically cringe. What I worry is in danger is our ability to have complicated protagonists, and Frankie, in great form, offers us up three of them, each distinct, each sympathetic, each extremely aggravating.
Can’t wait to see the conversations this book sparks, because imo it’s sure the be the best small press debut of the year (that isn’t my one at least).