Paperback 358: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter / Carson McCullers (Bantam A1091)

Paperback 358: Bantam A1091 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Author: Carson McCullers
Cover artist: Uncredited [faint signature on crease in bottom right corner looks like that of Mitchell Hooks]

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, that guy is selling it. Least appreciative audience Ever.
• I read this book twenty years ago and though I largely forget the plot I remember really liking it. I do, however, remember the first line, verbatim. "In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together." I think those are the mutes there: Tevye and the Undertaker.
• Little girl demonstrates that peculiar paperback phenomenon whereby people appear to be looking at things they could not possibly see from that angle—that man is both behind her *and* blocked by a man's belly.
• I like how the human beings are painted naturalistically but the surroundings are kind of surreal. I mean, look at that gray and white smear of a sidewalk. And that fire&brimstone sky.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Easy, girls, there's enough of me for both of you."
• LOVE her "Holy F*&^" expression.
• Not generally a fan of the multiple-scene cover—pick a scene and depict it, dammit, don't try to cram so much action into such a little space. Here, however, the paintings are discrete enough, and large enough, that there's not the usual feeling of chaos.
• No Pasadena Star-News blurbs here. All top tier publications.

Page 123~

"No. There was some definite thing you did that for. We been knowing each other a pretty long time, and I understand by now that you got a real reason for every single thing you ever do. Your mind runs by reasons instead of just wants. Now, you promised you'd tell me what it was, and I want to know."

~RP

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Paperback 343: The Mesh / Lucie Marchal (Bantam A1923)

Paperback 323: Bantam A1923 (1st new Bantam ptg, 1959)

Title: The Mesh
Author: Lucie Marchal
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: Not for sale (one of three 'new' books I got from Doug Peterson this past weekend)

Best things about this cover:

• "Strange," "hidden," "forbidden" ... there's a reason it won the "LES Lettres Françaises" prize!
• Love the title font. Ambivalent about the colors. Also, why aren't these telegenic French lesbians wearing mesh? I was promised the mesh, I want to see the mesh.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Inbred!?"—jeez, nice metaphor.
• There's nothing lesbians like more than a good "psychological probing." Oh, and "Balzac."

Page 123~

As long as I live I shall never forget the sight I beheld when I opened the bathroom door, a sight which even today I do not know whether to call obscene or pathetic, but which I know was the start of the subsequent profound change in my whole outlook and my life.

The "sight" involves a topless woman washing a dog. Dum dum DUM!

~RP

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Paperback 323: The Hate Merchant / Niven Busch (Bantam A1204)

Paperback 323: Bantam A1204 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Hate Merchant
Author: Niven Busch
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• "Hate for sale! Get your fresh hot hate here!"
• I like the drunk guy inciting the mob while doing an impression of Gene Kelly in 'Singin' in the Rain' — "What a glorious feeling, I'm h- ... Hey, look everybody. It's the giant floating head of Broderick Crawford! Get him!"
• That is the cock-teasiest cover picture I've seen in a long time. Look at her giving him the coy look and hiking up her skirt: "What? Oh, you want some of this ... this creamy, smooth thigh? Do you? Fat chance you stupid schlub! Call me when you get a real job!" "Why I oughta..." "Oh, your impotent rage is comical." Etc.
• Design fail: wraparound cover that doesn't. Why in the world do you put the blue frame down the left side when the painting actually *continues* around to the spine and back cover. It's called a 'wrap-around' for a reason, and you have totally blown the effect, jackasses.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Frank!"
• Thank god for the parenthetical "Ala." in the review; otherwise, how would we know which prestigious "Advertiser" was responsible for this blurbing gem?
• The mob action is much better on the back cover. More dynamic stick-wielders, more clearly suffering bodies.

Page 123~

Pros nodded. He reached for the bottle, but Splane moved it out of the way.

This is what happens when you let your 4-yr-old daughter name the characters in your book.

~RP

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Paperback 322: The Syndic / Cyril M. Kornbluth (Bantam 1317)

Paperback 322: Bantam 1317 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Syndic
Author: Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cover artist: uncredited (I want it to be Richard Powers, but who knows?)

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Are we not men? We are DEVO!"
• In the background, generic scifi cover ... but in the foreground: Dirk Studly models his Kanye3000 spex and his real boss new flashlight holder.
• I love this guy. The cover dies without him. "I'm here to rescue your cover, ma'am. Don't worry."
• "Syndic?" The "-ate" was just too much of a mouthful? I am pronouncing this title "The Sin Dick," and hope you do the same.

Best things about this back cover:

• More outrageous exclamation point action. Love it! Start with a timid "Tomorrow?" and end with a big fucking exclamation point slamming down on your cover: "Hell yes, tomorrow!"
• Oooh, the "twenty-first century" ... I'm going to look out my window now and there better be little people running frantically through sand pits, away from a dystopic city and toward their badass, flashlight-wielding savior, or I'm going to feel very ripped off.

Page 123~

"I'm Ken Oliver, a figure man in the Blue Department, Picasso Oils and Etchings Corporation. Dr. Latham sent me here for—what do you call it?—a biopsy."

~RP

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Paperback 308: A Room on the Route / Godfrey Blunden (Bantam 947)

Paperback 308: Bantam 947 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Room on the Route
Author: Godfrey Blunden
Cover artist: Uncredited [Schaare???]

Yours for: $17


Best thing about this cover:

• Soviet singing sensation "Drago" was in constant danger of being mauled by his overzealous, sex-crazed fanbase of lonely Nanas. Here, security moves in quickly to save him.
• This book was apparently published in that narrow window of time when "Soviet" had not yet found a "Union" to modify.
• This guy's like a Soviet Jesus. Look at his beatific face, the halo of light around his head, the way he's being mistreated, the way he appears to be looking plaintively at us, admonishing us to give up our sinful ways... you've got Mary there in foreground, Mary Magdalen in background, Roman centurions coming to take him away ...

Best things about this back cover:

• N.K.V.D. — secret police organization that preceded K.G.B.; not, as I'd originally hoped, the shortened name of 90's boy band New Kids with Venereal Diseases.
• Every book should come with "mounting action."

Page 123~

The men in the factory felt they had made a victory.

The men in the factory then headed to their ESL class to learn more about how to make a sentence that sounds right in English.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 307: Payment Deferred / C.S. Forester (Bantam 816)

Paperback 307: Bantam 816 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Payment Deferred
Author: C.S. Forester
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The hot new sequel to "Interest Accrued," from the publishers who brought you "Expenses Deducted"
• "They're after me, Gladys! I know they are. You defer *one* payment and they sic the dogs on you. That's why I've put my throne by the window, so I can keep my eye ... hey! What's that? Is someone going through our trash? Oh. No, just a raccoon. Here, get me some more Red Bull, would ya? Gotta stay alert ..."
• I love her face — happy, like she's imagining what she'll do with his money when he's inevitably bumped off.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... will keep you chained to your chair..." — That's pretty vivid. "This book will perform such degrading acts of bondage upon you that you'll be forced to acknowledge its awesomeness."
• Hey, looks like the original hardcover features a guy looking out a window, too. I'll take the cover with the sexily murderous strawberry blonde any day of the week.

Page 123~

For once he was neither the hotel prisoner nor yet was he at home with his father. It was the transition stage. He spent his time deliciously, luxuriously.

Ah, the transition stage from hotel prisoner to home with father. Such a heady time in a young man's life.

~RP

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Paperback 306: High Sierra / W.R. Burnett (Bantam 826)

Paperback 306: Bantam 826 (1st ptg, 1950) (ex-lib)

Title: High Sierra
Author: W.R. Burnett
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover

• "Yeah, so, I like to grab the shaft real tight with one hand, like so, and then rub the tip back and forth with the other hand, real slow, like so, you see? And then ... what? What're you mugs starin' at? Ain't you never seen a guy polish his gun before?"
• I *love* the expression on her face. It's like she's saying, quietly, out of the side of her mouth: "Uh ... are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Clearly the dude with the cards is as stunned as she is ... staring intently ... clawing the chair arm ...
• In other news about the guy stroking his rod: those are some high pants. Tie-swallowing pants. And the girliest suspenders imaginable.

Best thing about this back cover:

• Only the Cincinnati Times Star really appears to be tapping into what I'm seeing on the cover.

Page 123~

Roy was appalled at the change in Big Mac's appearance and sat studying him covertly. Mac had lost a lot of weight and the skin under his chin hung in pale folds. His hands shook and he kept drinking glass after glass of straight whisky.

I can't help but picture a haggard, embittered, world-weary, alcoholic Mayor McCheese.

~RP

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Paperback 305: Air Bridge / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1125)

Paperback 305: Bantam 1125 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Air Bridge
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Looks like the final frame in a Douglas Sirk melodrama. "We'll follow that Air Bridge, darling ... follow it ... to Freedom!" [cue music ... and cue credits]
• That is a *lot* of coat he's wearing. Note that it's enveloping not just him, but the adoring, beret-wearing lady he's got his arm around as well — the one who looks like she's thinking: "Forget the airplanes for one second and kiss me, you gorgeous slab of a man!"
• Check out Heckle and Jeckle conspiring in the shadowy background. "To be continued ... ?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Why does all the danger in paperback cover copy descriptions come in "web" form?
• SAETON? ELSE!?!? What, are you using a Ouija Board to name your characters?
• "DIANA, who wanted Saeton with the hard passion of a man..." Hot girl-on- ... whatever SAETON is ... action!

Page 123~

His voice had risen and there was a wild look in his eyes. "Forget about yourself. Forget about me. Won't you do this for your country?"
"No," I said.

~RP

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Paperback 304: Seven / Carson McCullers (Bantam Giant A1235)

Paperback 304: Bantam Giant A1235 (1st ptg — unusually, labeled "First Edition" — 1954)

Title: Seven
Author: Carson McCullers
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $9

• ... in which an Amazon thrashes a little hunchback with a whip, a young Army private steals a heap of seatbelts from Abe Lincoln and Harry Truman, and Old Joe McGuffin asks Joey if he's ever been in a Turkish prison.
• Never was a big fan of the multi-scene cover — too much going on, all the art gets short shrift.

• "A fourth-dimensional quality" — so ... it's a book about time travel, then? Awesome.
• "... the tempestuous seas of human living" — yeesh, dial it back, Cap'n Foley.
• "Troubling of a Star" is a terrrrrrible title. Why not just call it "The Troubling Star" or "Star Trouble" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or something?
• New York TIMES (!) gives us perhaps the best one-word review of a book so far: "... ABLE"; that's not a review, that's a suffix.

Page 123~

The child repeated the words, and she repeated them with unbelieving terror. "The tooth tree!"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 44

Title: False to Any Man (Bantam 80, 2nd ptg, 1947)
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: "Kohs"

Yours for: $8

• When the Bride of Frankenstein sleeps, she dreams of the facades of junior high schools.
• I sort of like the torn cover effect, but the rest — it's both nonsensical and ugly. The color scheme alone is a nightmare.
• "Colonel Primrose" already sounds like someone I'd like to kick in the balls.

• If only this book were about a "gimlet-eyed" cat.
• Always sad when the original cover is light years better, design-wise, than the paperback.

Page 123~

"He sure am smart, ain' he?" William said, with quite genuine enthusiasm.

In case you were still entertaining some idea of actually reading anything written by this woman...

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 33 and 34

Title: Roosevelt and Hopkins (in two volumes!) (Bantam nn, October 1950)
Author: Robert E. Sherwood
Cover artist: photos

Yours for: $8 (for the two)

• "Oh, Hopkins, how I think of you when you're away ..."
  
• I bought these because a. I don't have much non-fiction / history / biography in my collection, and b. I had noooooooooo idea how a two-volume biography of a president of the U.S. could be (half-) dedicated to a Man I Had Never Heard Of. Hopkins!? Gerard Manley is the only Hopkins I know. Oh, and Johns.
• Harry Hopkins was an important adviser to FDR — one of the architects of the New Deal (acc. to Wikipedia).

Vol 2:

• What the hell has FDR got on his shoulder? His wife's hat?

• Major props to FDR for being the only one of the three world leaders in this photo who doesn't look like a total asshole.

Page 123~

After he became Secretary of State, Marshall told me that he believed that his appointment as Chief of Staff in 1939 had been primarily due to Harry Hopkins.

In return, Marshall had to give Hopkins his first-born child.

~RP

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Paperback 303: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter / Carson McCullers (Bantam F1762)

Paperback 303: Bantam F1762 (1st thus, 1958)

Title: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Author: Carson McCullers
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• I'm going to go with "the font." I don't really like this cover.
• Why does this cover make me think the story takes place in China. I fell like this should be the cover of a Pearl S. Buck novel.
• Orange rules, as a color.
• That red drawing of a carnival is so incredibly tiny that I can hardly believe anyone OK'd its inclusion on the cover. What's it supposed to signify? It's too small to create much visual interest, and it bears no clear (or unclear) relation to the main painting. Just weird.

Best things about this back cover:

• "I am Carson McCullers and I am looking at you. Yes I am."
• "... an enduring masterpiece that will live on" — yeah, that's what "enduring" things tend to do. Ugh.
• What is "savage tenderness?" Is that when a native boy gently pats your brow? Or ... what? Was the design of this book (incl. decisions about cover copy) just given over to some intern? The whole thing feels ... not laughably bad, but just off.

Page 123~

Grandpa scratched his ear with a matchstick. 'Somebody got to stay home.'

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. Tomorrow begins the University Book Sale. I will be there when it starts and will not leave until I have acquired much goodness. I may have to bring helper monkeys to make sure nothing sweet gets by me. Look for the fruits of my labor beginning Sunday.

Paperback 302: Behold This Woman / David Goodis (Bantam 407)

Paperback 302: Bantam 407 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Behold This Woman
Author: David Goodis
Cover artist: William Shoyer

Yours for: $40


Best things about this cover:

• Only four?
• Behold these boobs!
• Love the guy's hand: "... must ... not ... fondle ..."
• Notice how often woman is front and center on pb covers while man is off to side, lopped off, seen from behind, kind of in shadows, etc. Woman is meant to be a very particular dish, while man is usu. a kind of Everyman. Or Anysap, I guess.
• Now that I look more closely at the picture, I think that the guy is an interior decorator who is having a coronary after witnessing the pink rococo orgasm that is this room.

Best things about this back cover:

• I'm going to go with ... the knife jammed into the window sill. Yes, that's the best thing.
• Actually, I'm loving the little blue and pink Yes / Buts.
• Wow, the original cover girl for "Behold This Woman" was all kinds of ugly.

Page 123~

The gray-haired man was annoyed. "What do you mean, help you?" he said. "What do you take me for, an ignoramus?"

~RP

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Paperback 297: Here Come Joe Mungin / Chalmers S. Murray (Bantam A1193)

Paperback 297: Bantam Giant A1193 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Here Come Joe Mungin
Author: Chalmers S. Murray
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $50


Best things about this cover:

• Only a guy that big could get away with wearing something that ... let's say, flamboyant. "Yeah, I'm wearing a speckled salmon V-neck with a pink sash for a belt and pin-striped trousers. You wanna make somethin' of it?"
• Why is this book so pricey? It's a total mystery. Found one going for cheapish, but most are going $40-$90. "Rare in any condition." Why???
• "Chalmers" is a funny name. "Seymour!" (that's for "Simpsons" fans)
• I am disturbed by how long this guy is. I mean, from bottom of the V-neck to top of the head is an Eternity.

Best things about this back cover:

• Apparently what "Sea Island Negroes" like to do is get drunk and fight. Perhaps also have sex and play the barrel-drum. Nice.
• Again, I await the historian who can tell me why this book is 5-10 times more valuable than your average mid-50s Bantam.

Page 123~

"Joe Mungin, I 'most mad 'nough to knock you."
"Oh, don't tarrigate yourself. Here, take a drink. Too hot for fight, too hot for quarrel."

"Don't tarrigate yourself" is officially my new catchphrase.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 281: Dead Pigeon / Robert P. Hansen (Bantam 1188)

Paperback 281: Bantam 1188 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Dead Pigeon
Author: Robert P. Hansen
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• Step 1: shred my shirt and stun her with my awesome torso. Step 2: beat her to death with a dead pigeon
• Am I supposed to believe that that is an ordinary white dress shirt. Because I do not believe that that is an ordinary white dress shirt. On his left side, it all looks normal enough, but on his right ... where's the sleeve? Is it a vest? Some kind of crazy modern Swedish Eurovest?
• I normally find smoking girls with guns and cleavage and gams to be quite hot. Not so this one. She looks bored. Or spellbound by the torsal grandeur of her captive.
• Something weird is going on behind her head. There's a lamp ... but it sort of disappears somewhere around the "B" in "Robert," as if its right half is invisible.

Best things about this back cover:

• Words cannot describe how much I love the iconic "Hand of Guy in Suit Holding Pistol" — I want a T-shirt with that image and that image alone on it.
• The original cover image of this book pictured here is goofy but clever — a reader's POV depiction of a pigeon-shooting carnival game.
• The cover copy — front and back — is terrible. Pure cliche, and not even superawesomeshameless cliche. Just yawn. Like it was written by the Hardboiled PatterBot 3000.

Page 123~

"[...] Parker was the cruelest man I've ever known, a sadist in an extremely controlled way. He's done several things to me that are unbelievable. [...]"

~RP

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Paperback 280: The Female Man / Joanna Russ (Bantam Q8765)

Paperback 280: Bantam Q8765 (PBO, 1975)

Title: The Female Man
Author: Joanna Russ
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "See, you thought I was a woman, but under these boobs ... no, wait, under these boobs ..."
• You decide: crazy red hair that conveniently hides her (apparently faux) vagina? or monstrous red pubic hair that is attempting to eat her head?
• "Dad, this stripper is scaring me. Can we go home now?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Reality Times 3" — sounds like a very bad educational / religious rap act.
• Passive voice cavalcade in that fourth sentence is setting my teeth on edge.
• Apparently a reference to Philip Wylie's "The Disappearance" meant something to someone at some point.

Page 123~

I want love. (she dropped her paper cup of lemonade and covered her face with her hands.)

Wow, they really screwed up her order.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 279: The Angry Mountain / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1058)

Paperback 279: Bantam 1058 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Angry Mountain
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• He put his ear to the door. "Shhh. Be quiet, naked Sonia Braga. I think hear the mountain ... and it sounds angry."
• Sonia Braga: The Crappy Casting Couch Years
• Does anyone even know who Sonia Braga is any more? "Kiss of the Spider Woman?" Anyone?
• "A smashing story..." As in, "We smashed one of the louvered blind panels out of the window to enhance your lava-viewing pleasure."
• There are so many folds in that sheet. It's mesmerizing if you look at it for too long...

Best things about this back cover:

• I love the quaint explanation of why this paperback book exists. "See, we published a book in hardback, and it did really well, so we decided hey, we can probably sell enough in softcover to realize a robust profit, even with the smaller margins." The fifties were so earnest and friendly.
• I don't love the repro of the original cover. Book should be called "The Angry Hand."
• "Zina murmured sleepily and sat up, showing me her nakedness." Pardon me while I throw up in my mouth a little. I think you mean "I could see her boobs. Oh man, boobs. Awesome."
• Love love love the Orwellian announcement of the forthcoming Huxley novel. "Brave New World is coming! You will submit to its laws! Resistance is Futile!"

Page 123~

"Do you think I don't know what the man is? That last night in Milan—I lay in bed in the dark and felt his hands on my leg. I knew those hands. I'd known them [sic] if a thousand hands were touching my leg."

"A thousand!?" Seriously, Sonia Braga had to do some terrible shit to get her career underway.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. I need your help. Some entity calling itself "Book Blogger Appreciation Week" (BBAW) has notified me that my blog, this blog, has been nominated for one of its annual awards in the category of ... BEST WRITING. Really? Of all the categories (including Funniest Blog, hello) this is the one I'm nominated for? The Big One? Well, OK. Thank you. I'm flattered, even if my nomination is really just the voice of one crank crying in the wilderness (or my mom). I can tell you there is no way I have a chance of even being shortlisted. First, those book blogger ladies are mobbed up tight. They read and write like crazy and all seem to know each other (if the Twitter back-and-forths I see from time to time are any indication). Second, they actually read the books they talk about, whereas yours truly hasn't read a book in years; I can barely get through my Batman comics week to week. Third, my audience, while brilliant and loyal, is still relatively small. But in the interest of ... whaddya call it ... gratitude? Yeah, gratitude, as well as bloggerly community, I'm going to play ball. Here's what I have to do (and how you can help). The following is verbatim from the notification email:

In order to help our panels fairly evaluate your blog, we ask that you submit permalinks (direct links to individual blog posts) for 5 blog posts per category that you consider to be the best representation of your blog. [...] Of the 5 posts submitted please include a minimum of one book review/recommendation/or spotlight post.

So, please help me, if you would, by suggesting (in comments, or by email) which write-ups you think I should submit. I have no perspective. I think even my ugliest children are awesome.

Thank you.

~RP

PAPERBACK 250!!!!: Death Warmed Over / Mary Collins (Bantam 718)

Welcome to "Pop Sensation"'s "PAPERBACK 250 CONTEST"
[see Contest Rules, below]

Paperback 250: Bantam 718 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Death Warmed Over
Author: Mary Collins
Cover artist: Gilbert Fullington


Contest Rules:

• Best comment or caption in 140 characters (or fewer) wins not only this book, but Paperbacks 251 and 252 as well.
• Contest will run from now until 8 a.m. EDT, Friday, July 3, 2009.
• One entry per contestant, please.
• Contestants are encouraged to submit entries as Tweets on Twitter (@rexparker), but emails to rexparker [at] mac [dot] com will also be accepted (please send any questions about contest to that email address as well).
• Keep in mind that a "character" is any single letter, punctuation mark, or blank space. Concision is your friend. But feel free to get creative with the abbreviations.
• Comments will be disabled for the duration of the contest.
• Winner and first and second runners-up will be announced by noon Friday, at which time the best entries (and possibly all entries, depending on how many there are) will be posted for all to see.

Your Panel of Judges:

• Me
• Maughta, creator of the fabulous blog for book cover lovers/haters, "Judge a Book By Its Cover"
• Michael 5000, creator of the fabulous blog for the dork lifestyle, "The Life and Times of Michael 5000"

Prizes:

• Grand Prize: Paperbacks 250, 251, and 252
• 1st Runner-up: two cool but very beat-up paperbacks from outside my official collection + 1 copy of the recent comic "Barack the Barbarian"
• 2nd Runner-up: one cool but very beat-up paperback from outside my official collection + 1 copy of the recent comic "Barack the Barbarian"

Best of luck, and tell a friend...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 247: Terror in the Streets / Howard Whitman (Bantam A964)

Paperback 247: Bantam A964 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Terror in the Streets
Author: Howard Whitman
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours for: $10


Best thing about this cover:

• Ah, 1950s paranoia at its finest
• Can't a pretty girl get a haircut at 1 a.m. without being team-stalked by tough guys in olive drab suits anymore? What a world ...
• Guns 'n' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" was based on this book cover
• Maguire would eventually learn his lesson: Put Girl In Foreground!

Best things about this back cover:

• You can tell even from this crowded array of scenes that Maguire is a masterful illustrator. Great faces, action, use of light...
• Love the action in the alley by the garbage cans. Smacked his fedora off with a blackjack. That's about as 50s as 50s violence gets. Fedora still in mid-air. Rich.
• Every quote reads like it's coming out of the mouth of Maude Flanders: "Won't somebody please think of the children!?"

Page 123~

The police are hardly interested in, nor would the average police mentality be capable of understanding, such psycho-dynamics. Police are interested in end-results. When an old homosexual is found dead in his hotel room after picking up a man at a bar, the police just put it down as a "fag murder" and go on from there.

~RP

Paperback 246: The Disenchanted / Budd Schulberg (Bantam A1051)

Paperback 246: Bantam A1051 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Disenchanted
Author: Budd Schulberg
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Her pose! One shoe! Awesome. I think I love her.
  
• Book should be called "The Dissolute," or "Yeah, I'm Drunk, Whaddya Gonna Do About It, Ya Impotent Bastard? Get Me Another Martini"
• Harry Schaare Loves his Floating Heads — we'll see more in the future.
• Love the little maniacal dancing / jazz club scene in the background
• The novel may be set in the 20s, but these people are not believably from the 20s. Except for emaciated Clark Gable in a tux back there, hitting on the girl who's reclining on the hair of Floating Head. He's 20s all the way.
• "What Makes Sammy Run" is a classic Hollywood novel. Fantastic.

Best things about this back cover:

• LOVE the guy admiring the rack of his drunken lady friend, up-close! "Yes. These will do nicely."
• Toga party or religious visitation? "This angel came into my candle-lit room last night ... man, she was hot."
• I love Michener's precision — like he remembers exactly where he was, three years ago, when he read a novel better than this one.

Page 123~

When he finds out the commercial tie-up he feels like a jerk for having fallen for her. Then, in the finals of the ski-jump, he's injured.

~RP

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