Paperback 357: Night Train / Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) (Lion Library LL40)

Paperback 357: Lion Library LL40 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1955)

Title: Night Train
Author: Kenneth Millar
Cover artist: Samson Pollen

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• I think there is a single scene in this book that is set in a jazz club. Why they have completely de-crime-fictionized this cover, I don't know ("A Bold Story of Fierce Desire"??), but I'm glad they did—the painting is fantastic: vibrant and chaotic. You rarely see a black woman in the position of sexy dame on these covers—very nice.
• I like the guy right behind her—the guy you are very likely to miss if you're sucked into either the playing/dancing or the steamy glance between Ms. Bar Lady and Mr. Ne'er-Do-Well. The guy behind her—he's the one I want to know. He's either tailing that guy, or he's just thinking "Really? That guy? She must be working some angle..."
• Love the guy in the foreground with the cigar! He is sooo happy to have that cigar!
• What is up with the letter spacing on the tagline? Letters get closer together as title moves left to right. It's like a 3rd grader wrote it by hand and ran out of room as she approached the right margin
  

Best things about this back cover:

• This is (pretty much) the cover of the original Lion edition of this book (which I own ... hey, wait, I've already blogged it—it's here! Check out the art parallels)
• Ross Macdonald was (understandably) saddled with the "Chandler/Hammett" mantle early on in his career, and despite a period of phenomenal fame (peaking around 1970), he just wasn't the artist either Hammett or Chandler was, and hasn't had their longevity. I know I am in the minority here, but I'm not a big Macdonald fan; I especially don't care for the Lew Archer stuff. Archer's just a smarmy, dull, self-righteous Marlowe. A Not-Marlowe. A Marl-faux. Sadly, he's also the model for virtually every P.I. that came after him.
• There is more than a "trace" of Freud in Macdonald's work; when reading Macdonald, I often feel like I'm reading a novel whose sole purpose is to illustrate some concept from Psychology 101. If I remember correctly, though, this pre-Lew Archer stuff is pretty tight and entertaining.

Page 123~

Mrs. Tessinger was extraordinarily vivacious. Her bosom seemed higher than ever, and her waist tighter.

That's a nice, lecherous eye the narrator has there.

~RP

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Paperback 199: Don't You Weep, Don't You Moan / Richard Coleman (Lion Library LL28)

Paperback 199: Lion Library LL28 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Don't You Weep, Don't You Moan
Author: Richard Coleman
Cover artist: Samson Pollen

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "We'll make our first incision ... here."
• "I'm just putting the final touches on my remarkably realistic head sculpture. . . there. Done."
• "Do those shoes look shined to you, you incompetent !@#@#!"
• Can you tell I'm just trying to think of captions that don't involve her demanding oral sex.
• This woman could be the slightly classier sister of Tombolo lady. Derisive sneer. Half akimbo stance. Tramptacular outfit. Etc.
• I love the abrasion and fraying on this cover - really drives home the "raw desire"
• The song is "Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn" - it's a Negro spiritual about delivery from oppression - which makes this title ... man, I don't know. I want to say "sacrilicious."
• Wait, is this lady black? Oh, dear lord, one of the interior blurbs discusses "the power of Negro emotions ... the raw, primitive passions, the splendid crudity ..." So the Charlotte Observer observes. The New York Times approaches the topic in characteristically elliptical and ironic fashion, mentioning the novel's "great color and variety."
• This novel's approach to coding / masking race is freaking me out, frankly. Check out the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• "swamp girl!"
• "seething b(l)ack streets!"
• OK, Washington Times, let me get this straight: Barbarity is at the top of the arc and brutality is at the bottom? "Sorry, blacks, you may go only as high as barbarity. At least it's beautiful barbarity. Be grateful."

Page 123~

"Dis sho is good fish," he said

~RP