Anna Mikhailova
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Girl With a One Track Mind, written under the pseudonym Abby Lee and published last week, has been hailed as the summer’s sauciest memoir, an erotic version of Bridget Jones.
The blog-turned-book is the most explicit in the female “erotic odyssey” genre sparked by Belle de Jour, the Sexual Life of Catherine M and Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl.
In graphic detail it charts the sexual adventures and desires of a thirtysomething single woman in London whose twin obsessions are sex and films.
The author says on her blog she is “paranoid” that her identity will be exposed, possibly by an embittered former lover. In the acknowledgments in her book she makes it clear she would be embarrassed if her parents read of her exploits.
This weekend the woman behind it was revealed as Zoe Margolis, a film assistant who lives in north London. Her recent film work includes the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Batman Begins and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.
Margolis’s literary ambitions first emerged two years ago when she started penning a risqué internet diary detailing her life as a sexually voracious single woman in the capital.
The blog quickly gained cult status and her website has had more than 2m visitors and attracts more than 100,000 readers a month. The book went to the top of Amazon’s pre-ordered paperbacks chart after it was serialised in The Sunday Times Style section last month.
Ebury Press, a Random House subsidiary, is believed to have paid a six-figure advance for the book. Much of its commercial value depends on readers believing it is the true account of a sexually liberated woman.
The publishers of Belle de Jour, the account of life as a high-class London prostitute, went to extreme lengths to protect the identity of its author, amid speculation that it was concocted by a jobbing writer. Despite numerous attempts, her true identity has not been conclusively established.
Margolis’s book is even less inhibited than that of Belle. “I’m 32, single and horny and I want to have some fun. And over the past year, I’ve been doing just that,” says “Abigail”, the book’s main character.
The book follows Abby on her journey through a dozen one-night stands and “commitment-free romps” in seedy bars and restaurant toilets.
Despite her anxiety not to get caught, Margolis does not disguise her interest in film and says she has a particular obsession with actors.
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