Skivvy Girl

I copyrighted a historical novel about a young Japanese girl, who in post WWII, was forced into prostitution in the port city of Yokosuka. The book, entitled: Skivvy Girl: The Love of a Post WWII Japanese Pleasure Girl, will be available in March of this year. Matsuyama Yoshiko, the protagonist, is a composite of the young girls entering into prostitution during the 1950s. She abhorred the life of a prostitute, but after barely subsisting on the meager pay of a job sorting rotten vegetables, she reluctantly chose being a "skivvy girl", as the prostitutes were called in military jargon, over suicide. Arriving in Yokosuka, the site of the largest naval port in Japan, penniless and friendless, she was befriended by a skivvy girl who took her to a skivvy house. The mama-san agreed to take the naive country girl into her tutorage and train her how to "accommodate" customers. The training was rigorous and her initiation was horrendous. The seventeen-year-old virgin was beaten and violated in the most brutal manner. But she survived and began to accommodate her customers in such a way as to build up a substantial clientele. One day a young American sailor chanced to visit the skivvy house where Yoshiko worked. They formed a bond that lasted over the next two years. Their affair suffered from language problems, cultural conflicts, unplanned separations, and the vicissitudes of a violent nature. But the survived only to face unsurmountable odds when the sailor's assignment ended and he returned to America. Despondent and determined not to return to the sordid life of a skivvy girl, Yoshiko returned to her home village. Luckily, she found employment at a newly started ceramic plant. She prospered and when her lover returned to Japan eight years later, she agreed to resume their relationship. Their blissful life was ended when fate intervened and presented them with obstacles the could not overcome.

Skivvy Girl is a compassionate look at the life of thousands of young Japanese girls during and immediately after the military occupation in the 1950s. The reader of this new book will empathize with both the skivvy girl and her lover. It will be nearly impossible to put the book down before reading it in its entirety.

Go to my WEB site, www.earnestmercerbooks.com, and order the book for your infinite pleasure, whether or not you are of the age depicted in the storyline.

You may order the book from me directly by email: emercer2@tampabay.rr.com, or by telephone: 863 967-2077. I'll send you a copy postpaid for $15.95.