57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 5

Title: The Man in Lower Ten (Dell D276, 1959)
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Muni

Yours for: best offer

• I'm intrigued the modernist book design in the book hammock
• More gruesome lefthanditude
• This cover gets awesomer once you realize that it is a wrap-around...

• Free verse. Interesting. I am imagining this being read at a Poetry Slam. Now I'm imagining it being read by Garrison Keillor. Both versions have their charms / horrors.
• "Confirmed bachelor" — awesome! The main character is gay! That must be why there's that dash for shocking emphasis in the phrase "he fell desperately, unequivocally / in love — with a woman!" [gasp!]
• Mmmm, 9. My favorite number. I am the man in lower nine.

Page 123~

Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now his voice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses' hoofs, came to me.

What are horses hoofs doing in the middle of an otherwise very hot sex scene?

~RP

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Paperback 149: Man on the Move / Cliff Merritt (Popular Library 445-08224-075)

Paperback 149: Popular Library 445-08224-075 (PBO, 1973)

Title: Cliff Merritt's Man on the Move!
Author: Cliff Merritt, I presume
Cover artist: Let me guess - Cliff Merritt?

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Cliff Merritt is ... Cliff Merritt, in ... Cliff Merritt's ... Man on the Move!"
• I remember looking at this book for So Long wondering ".... ?"
• "The different modes of transportation are not enough - we need an inset ... maybe a railroad conductor, or ... I know! An old dude doing the white man's overbite while rocking out to Huey Lewis on his weekly trip to the cardigan sweater store in Utica! That's it!"
• Cliff Merritt is Chris Ware's great-grandfather, I'm convinced.
• This book has "looming gas crisis" written All over it.
• Least appealing color palette ever.

Best things about this back cover:

• "It's hip to be square!"
• "Between book covers," HA ha. Now if we're talking "between stone tablets," "between blades of grass," or "between your buttcheeks," well, mister, that's a whole 'nother story.
• "It gets more interesting with every page you turn" - "Damn it, how do you work these book thingies again, Mildred? Oh, right, you turn the pages. Stupid modern technology."

And it does get "more interesting" (Chinese folks might want to look away now):


Cliff Merritt is basically that random older guy everyone knows who likes to show you all the trivia he knows because he imagines it makes him seem wise. That little symbol, like a "T" having its way with a "W" ... it's on Every Single Drawing. So it's a ... signature? The opening blurb in the book says that Cliff Merritt cartoons are "well-loved." I would say "well tolerated," at best. Like the drugs you see ads for on TV.

Page 123~


~RP

Paperback 138: One-Way Ticket / Bert and Dolores Hitchens (Perma Books M-3100)

Paperback 138: Perma Book M-3100 (1st ptg, 1957)
Title: One-Way Ticket
Author: Bert and Dolores Hitchens
Cover artist: James Meese



Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• "Railroad detective" - my favorite kind!
• The swirling green vortex of nausea and despair
• The distractingly child-like drawing of the upper half of a candle
• Cool stenciled font on the title
• That furniture - the proportions seem off and there are legs that appear to come from / go to nowhere, but in general, it's cool; spare, stark, mid-century modern in the very best way
• If only she hadn't cut her hair by herself in the dark with a bread knife, she would easily be one of the hottest women in my collection - understated yet stunning black dress (that's a dress, right, not a negligee?), fierce black slip-ons, and a perversely casual way with money. What's not to love?
  

Best things about this back cover:

• I love when back covers function like movie teasers: " ... MURDER! Featuring ... Boots! David Bryant! Some other B movie character actors whose names you don't know. And starring Jerry Mathers, as The Beav"
• Which of these names doesn't belong? A: "David Bryant" - what a dud. That last name really ruins the whole vibe of the back cover. Everyone else gets one colorful name, and he gets the full name of some guy from middle management.
• Wait, Rock dies? Uh, SPOILER ALERT!
• This all makes sense except for Boots. I mean, I could write the plot of this book, but I would have no idea what to do with Boots. David Bryant already has two women. Is Boots a cat?

Page 123~

This was a joke on Boots by Boots. They were all expected to enjoy it. They chuckled in chorus and Vic felt a fool.

I'm guessing it was a familiar feeling.

~RP

Paperback 83: Trouble Follows Me / Kenneth Millar (Lion Books 47)

Paperback 83: Lion Books 47 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Trouble Follows Me
Author: Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald)
Cover artist: unknown

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "Gimme a 'D'! Gimme an 'E'! Gimme an 'A'! Oh hell, just give me a kiss, big boy!"
• "I demand to know how why you aren't wearing an American flag on this lapel, you bastard!"
• "Honey, you know I love caressing your elbows, but people are starting to stare ..."
• I admire this man's ability to check out the smoking man behind him despite the fact that the laws of nature forbid it - how is he able to see through his own left shoulder? Maybe he's checking him out in a mirror just off-screen...
• If you changed the text on the cover, you could easily turn this picture into a cover for a Kinsey-era "My secret gay life" and / or "Do I like boys or girls?" novel (an actual subgenre of which I own a few examples). The smoking man could be stalking our hero, but he could just as easily be checking out his ass.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Death tracked him." So the smoking man is ... Death. That's deep. Allegorical.
• "Moslem attitude of prayer" ???
• Sam Drake - sounds nothing like Sam Spade. How dare you suggest it's a pathetic rip-off.
• Kenneth Millar became one of the best-selling and best-reviewed crime fiction writers of the 20th century under the name Ross Macdonald. He is, more than anyone, responsible for the general shape, tenor, feel, idiom, etc. of the modern detective novel. This is not, IMOO, a good thing. Watered down, moralistic P.I.-ness ... hero is flawed but ultimately unequivocally Good. Give me Chandler's Philip Marlowe Any Day of the Week.
• This particular book is sun-faded like crazy, and has clearly been read multiple times (once by me). It's encased in a plastic slip cover (the way I found it). Still, it's tight and complete and a great, great reading copy.
• It's #47! (Meaningless to you unless you graduated from the same college as I did)

RP

Paperback 58: Orient Express / Graham Greene (Bantam 1333)

Paperback 58: Bantam 1333 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Orient Express
Author: Graham Greene
Cover artist: George Gross

"The story of a woman who struggled valiantly to hold up a giant, red wall!"

or

"The story of a woman who stood up to a marauding Lionel Train set!"

or

"The story of one woman's attempt to reach the On / Off switch
without drawing attention to herself!"

Best things about this cover:

• Fabulous melodramatic art. Love the exaggerated expression of terror on her face.
• Trenchcoat!
• After a few shabby reprints, we're back in the sweet spot of my collection. 1955 is probably the high point for paperback cover art, and George Gross is one of the top artists of the period (God I love it when I can read the artist's signature on a cover - it's shocking how often the artwork goes unattributed). I'd venture to guess that the average quality of cover art for 1955 is higher than that for any other year, with a rapid decline thereafter. I may have to start assigning covers ratings in order to "prove" my assertions.
• I had a student this past semester who looked an awful lot like this woman. She got an A-, which is pretty damned good in any class of mine.
• Graham Greene is my hero. He made so-called "genre fiction" cool in the eyes of the so-called "literary" establishment. He writes a hell of a sentence. If I could have anyone's literary career, it would be Graham Greene's. His, or John O'Hara's.
  

RP

Paperback 47: Bantam 405

Paperback 47: Bantam 405 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: The Hucksters
Author: Frederic Wakeman
Cover artist: Bernard D'Andrea


Best things about this cover:

• The Mysterious Hand of ... The Black Man
• "Uh ... Honey, did you order room service? You know how I hate being bothered when I'm doing my Word Finds!"
• "Don't look at me. I'm just harmlessly playing with this surreal toaster/radio while trying to keep my robe shut, even though it appears I am ogling the handsome porter who has just entered our doorway."

This cover is a miniature allegory of post-war race relations in America.

RP