It was a great night at the Museum of Sex on September 13th to celebrate the launch of the memoir The Princess of 42^nd Street: Surviving My Childhood as the Daughter of Time Square’s King of Porn by Romola Hodas with Elizabeth Ridley.

Author Romola Hodas Pens Her Inspiring Memoir About Growing Up

as the Daughter of the Man Who Created New York City’s Pornography Empire

After surviving a chaotic childhood, Romola Hodas, the eldest daughter of Times Square’s “King of Porn,” recounts her chaotic childhood amid the turmoil of publicly growing up as the daughter of the man who almost single-handedly built New York City’s pornography and adult entertainment empire from the 1960s to the 1980s before his spectacular and public fall from grace.  Her memoir, The Princess of 42nd Street: Surviving My Childhood as the Daughter of Times Square’s King of Porn by Romola Hodas and Elizabeth Ridley (Riverdale Avenue Books, September  2018) tells the tale of her childhood publicly for the first time.

Behind the salacious headlines, Marty Hodas’ family paid a terrible price. In her shockingly honest, no-holds-barred memoir, Romola describes hanging out as a child in her father’s porn shops on 42nd Street and meeting the eclectic clientele who frequented the stores, making friends with the girls who performed live sex acts on stage, and spying on her parents’ sex orgies and crazy all-night swinger parties. Romola relates, in moving detail, how she cared for her three younger siblings when her brilliant, bipolar mother broke with reality, and how she survived verbal, physical, and emotional abuse; a year in reform school; her father’s three stints in prison; two kidnapping attempts by the mob (one while at summer fat camp); and how her baby brother, Jarrett, actually was briefly kidnapped by mobsters wanting to send Marty Hodas a clear, unambiguous message.

“My story has its darker moments, but it is also infused with humor and hope. Hope always burned brightly inside me, even during the darkest of times,” said Romola Hodas. “My book is provocative, but also inspiring.”

For all its darkness, The Princess of 42nd Street is, at its heart, an uplifting and inspirational story of how one young woman overcame incredible odds to become a successful businesswoman who now devotes her life to helping others. Raw, unflinching, and devoid of self-pity, The Princess of 42nd Street is a one-of-a-kind story.