Edge

Just finished Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. While I haven't loved other things that I've read by her lately, Atwood's dystopia always manages to get under my skin.

The novel is partially told from the perspective of a young sex worker, and, from the first chapter, this snippet struck a chord:

"[The strip club] was well run, though it was in a seedy area -- all the clubs were. That was a matter of image, Mordis would say: seedy was good for business, because unless there's an edge - something lurid or tawdry, a whiff of sleaze - what separated our brand from the run-of-the-mill product the guy could get at home, with the face cream and the white cotton panties?"