Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World

Odzer got to know the bar girls, the bar boys, and their varied entourages. She gained their confidence, interviewed them at length, lived among them, and accompanied some of them home to visit their families - whom they often supported - in the isolated countryside, where they were idolized. She also got to know their customers - usually men who had traveled for thousands of miles to immerse themselves in the sensual world of Patpong - some of them falling in love with, even marrying, their newfound Thai companions. At times these liaisons, complicated by language and culture barriers, are truly hilarious, but they can be poignant, touching on the tragic. Odzer herself gained a deeper sympathy for these relationships when she became romantically involved with one of her male subjects. Her affair with him, mirroring the involvements in which many farangs found themselves with the bar girls, imparts to her book a very personal meaning.