Paperback 352: Me An' You / Jay Thomas Caldwell (Lion 220)

Paperback 352: Lion 220 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Me An' You
Author: Jay Thomas Caldwell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $30


Best things about this front cover:

• "Grrr, Hulk hate ordinary kitchen chair. Prefer mid-century modern aesthetic. Grrrrrr... Hulk crush chair!"
• They promise a "two-fisted Negro," but I can see just the one fist. Rip-off.
• I think the white t-shirt was a late decision. Pretty sure he was originally depicted shirtless, but then censors were like "Dude, we're already pushing the interracial envelope on this one—put some clothes on the guy." Anyway, late-add would explain somewhat the remarkable definition visible even through the shirt.
• I love her bored expression: "What's shaking my chair? Oh, it's you ... I don't suppose you're a big shot yet?"
• Lots of telling details in this one—the liquor, the news headline, the pile of dirty dishes, and of course, the pervading aura of grime.
• I think I remember Robert Polito saying (in his Thompson bio) that Jay Thomas Caldwell was a black writer who died young, possibly in a bank hold-up. But I could be misremembering my details.

Best things about this back cover:

• Why in the world would you even get *on* "the long ladder of bitterness and bleak despair?" I imagine any direction on that thing is a bad one.
• I am a little worried about Irma.

Page 123~ (four pages from end of book)

"People I used to know in the fight game stop me on the street an' say, 'Tommy, I hear you're a preacher now.' Yes, I tell them. I'm workin' for the Lord now."

"AAAAmen!"

"Praise the LOOOrd!"

Well, I did not see that coming.

~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 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

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 52

Title: The Swimming Pool
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Carl Bobertz

Yours for: $6

• Uh ... I don't think she's "swimming."
• Ross Macdonald had a novel called "The Drowning Pool" ... You should take titling lessons from him, Mary.
• "... as the rare yellow octopus sucked the last ounce of life from Judith's brain."

• Just one question: if she is safe "in the solitude of a padlocked bedroom," then how could "her private terror" spread "to all around her?" No One Is Around Her.

Page 123~

Only three of us went to the inquest the next day, Phil, Bill, and myself. For Judith was sick. She had worked herself into a fever, I suppose because she always hated the idea of death.

"I suppose." Well, thanks for the not-at-all medieval diagnosis, doc.

~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

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Paperback 274: Man Divided / Dean Douglas (Gold Medal 407)

Paperback 274: Gold Medal 407 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Man Divided
Author: Dean Douglas
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: SOLD! (Aug '09)


Best things about this cover:

• In case it's not clear, "half world" = gay gay gay. See also "twilight world."
• "He had to choose — a half world or a world of woman's love" — if his posture's any indication, that decision has already been made.
• The guy in the chair displays the classic "Sucker Slouch" (TM). It's common on noir/hardboiled covers. We will see a variation of this pose again on Sunday.
• You can almost hear the guy deflate: "ohhhh ... fuck." He can't even look at ... her? Wait, how do I know the seated guy is the "Man Divided" in this scenario? Why do I have a feeling that the "woman" in the pale green has a voice like Jack Palance?

Best things about this back cover:

• See, I told you. "Twilight world." Right on cue.
• "Then the contest began." I hope it's a baton-twirling contest. I love a good baton-twirling novel.
• "The problems of our times" = worst euphemism for homosexuality ever. I'll take outright offensive over this hazy blandness. Hell, I'd take "baton twirling" over this.

Page 123~

The next morning there was the mute evidence on the floor, the broken glasses and the pool of water from the melted ice cubes. Cromer had been furious about something. She had not asked. She had waited curiously to see.

Bi-curiously, that is.

~RP

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Paperback 254: Cradle of the Sun / John Clagett (Popular Library 566)

Paperback 254: Popular Library 566 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Cradle of the Sun
Author: John Clagett
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Sorry, ladies! Filene's Attic is closed!"
• "I just flew in from Cleveland and boy are my arms tired ... get it? ... airplane [mimes airplane] ... yeesh, tough room."
• Rick Astley protects his Mayan mistress from the Spaniards: "Never gonna give her up ..."
• "Excuse me, sir, we mean no offense. It's just ... you have a bit of mole sauce under your right nipple ... just ... here. Might I suggest you try donning a shirt next time you partake of a meal?"

Best things about this back cover:

• No offense, ma'am, but: Worst Hat Ever. I wanna club her head with a stick and see if candy comes out.
• "Taut tale" — aw yeah, tell me more.
• She does not seem impressed with the size of their knives. In fact, I'm not convinced she's really looking at them. "Excuse me guys, I think I see Enrique over there. Oh Enrique!"

Page 123~

"By God, Suarez, rejoice! Your wit has at last produced an idea!"

~RP

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Paperback 251: Episode / Peter W. Denzer (Popular Library 621)

Paperback 251: Popular Library 621 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Episode
Author: Peter W. Denzer
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: not available (property of "Paperback 250" contest winner!)


Best things about this cover:

• "Why won't the braless zombie look at me directly!? O, the melancholy. Where's my diary...?"
• "Vanity, thy name is braless zombie."
• "I brought you that braless zombie milk you asked for, honey. You'll have to come over here and get it, as I can't take my eyes off this hideous portrait of myself."
• "Hard-hitting" = "It hurts!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Shh! Did you hear that? Sounds like braless zombies!"
• "Oh god, please don't let her take my salmon throw pillow away!"
• "Many will flip straight to not like the brutal scenes of callous indifference; of patients in orgies for the amusement of attendants..."

Page 123~

He was free, but his freedom produced for the moment no more emotion than any short walk might have. His motive now in being free was not the motive which had produced his first plans. He was not sure what his motive was. He did not know where he was going.

Riveting! If only that paragraph had the word "motive" in it at least four more times.

~RP

Paperback 212: Notorious / Day Keene (Gold Medal 372)

Paperback 212: Gold Medal 372 (PBO, 1954) - Canadian Edition

Title: Notorious (no, not that "Notorious")
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The fact that the Canada-only "35c" price tag overrides the Giant "25c" sign in the middle of the cover painting.
• Innocent country girl tries to make it in the big ... Carny?
• "I want to look like her. Can you do that, leering carnival barker man?"
• "So, whatcha got in the suitcase, lady?" "Murder." "Oh ... I see."
• "Murder in her suitcase" - this makes me hope for something gloriously bloody, like a small chainsaw with which she starts beheading everyone in site: "Is this part of the show, mama?"
• I Really wish the lady in the foreground weren't so damned shadowed

Best things about this back cover:

• Say what you will about Day Keene, he could totally rock the 'stache.
• Ferron! "They call me Ferron: The Iron Man"
• "the main chance"? - is that Canadian for "the big score"?

Page 123~

Kelcey struck Ferron in the face. "Where's the money, carny? Where's the eighteen grand?"

~RP

Paperback 190: Deadlock / Ruth Fenisong (Dell 808)

Paperback 190: Dell 808 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Deadlock
Author: Ruth Fenisong
Cover artist: John McDermott

Yours for: SOLD! (1/23/09)


Best things about this cover:

• This guy doesn't look dead. He looks tuckered out after an evening of sloppy hamburger-eating. He's got that silly, sated grin on his face. He does have dead-hand, though, I'll give him that. That, or he's amusing his house guest by making shadow puppets on the ground
• This man, and thus the couch, is apparently 8 feet long. Seriously, if the dead guy stood up, his head would clearly no longer be in picture.
• This is the day that Dr. Carlotta Fiore decided, "No more housecalls!" - another day, another gigantic, drunk, ketchup-stained man.

Best things about this back cover:

• Torn from today's headlines! ... seriously, TORN. See the tears. We tore it. Torn!
• "Gridley Nelson" is officially my new crossword-solving moniker / alter ego. I might even have to keep the "Lieut." title.
• "Basement sordidness"!!! Man, I really need to know what that is.

Page 123~

"No." Gaudio turned his wobbly head from side to side to implement the weak denial. The effect was grotesque.

Though surely no more grotesque than the use of "implement" as a verb in that first sentence. Yikes.

~RP

Paperback 133: The Doctor on Bean Street / Simon Kent (Dell D143)

Paperback 133: Dell D143 (1st ptg, 1954)
Title: The Doctor on Bean Street
Author: Simon Kent
Cover artist: Bill George (yay, an artist credit!)

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• How many visual signifiers of "squalor" does one cover need? Sheesh. Look at that guy's shirt. The overflowing trash ... and did the Hulk have at the railing to those steps!? Bill George appears to have invented a new color: filth.
• "He knew the hungry passions of the damned ... and he knew Ingrid Bergman, who liked to stand on his front stoop, exuding a radiant aura of limeness."
• "We who wear the beret have a silent, secret language all our own..."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Street Walker" - subtle!
• "... about a cold ..." HA ha. Nice euphemism for gonorrhea / unwanted pregnancy
• O My God why would anyone read this book? It appears to be about a doctor so jaded that his only remaining joy in life is imagining the ways in which his patients will, inevitably, commit suicide. This cover copy makes Camus seem sunny.

Page 123~

Slap on a heap of records, without discretion, hook them on the spindle, start the turntable off. Then the wizard begins.

Yeah, that's right: wizard. Bet you didn't see that coming.

~RP

Paperback 132: With Sirens Screaming / Ernest Booth (Pyramid Books 121)

Paperback 132: Pyramid Books 121 (1st ptg, 1954)
Title: With Sirens Screaming
Author: Ernest Booth
Cover artist: looks like Robert Stanley, but it's technically "uncredited"

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• "Who is it, Steve? Is the pizza here?"
• "They PAID the PRICE for a PREMARITAL indiscretion" - a PYRAMID PAPERBACK, featuring ... POLICE, and ... other "P" words you may have heard of
• "With Sirens Screaming" - Would have been better if the Sirens had been Screaming "Sin, Sin, Sin!"; what kind of alliteration-inducing dope were the copywriter guys smoking?
• What is she doing with that sheet? It's a little late for modesty, sweetheart.
• The lady looks concerned not, as you might expect, because the police have come to stone her to death for being a harlot, but because in attempting to rise from bed, she has broken or otherwise done something horrible to her left wrist
• Hey, Steve. Little advice. If you are trying to peer through a window discreetly, you might not wanna pull the curtains apart so wide.

"Hey, coppers, look at the hot piece of tail I got up in here! Yeah, you wish your wives were this hot!"

"[tee hee], oh Steve... you're funny, and not nearly as creepy and sadistic as my friends said you were"


Best things about this back cover:

• You had me at "merciless penal code."
• This back cover brought to you by "Adjectives 'R' Us" - where we believe that every shocking noun deserves a reckless adjective. If you aren't happy with our merciless service, we'll give you your vicious money back

Page 123~

His shoulder had become a burning area whose throbbing was cadenced to each step he took ...

"Uh ... that's not my shoulder."

~RP

Paperback 98: The Corpse in the Wax Works / John Dickson Carr (Dell 775)

Paperback 98: Dell 775 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Corpse in the Wax Works
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• It's surrealism + gothic - SURROTHIC!
• Richard Powers is probably the best known scifi cover artist. It's weird - highly unusual - to see one of his paintings on anything but a scifi book. His stuff is always creepy and wacked-out, with arcs and bulbous things of indeterminate status. Clearly influenced by surreal artists, especially Yves Tanguy. In fact, this painting, despite its eerie otherworldiness, is far more representational (i.e. it has identifiable things in it) than most of his stuff.
• Love the lurking shadow in the middle background. Not as enamored with the horn-hatted Fu Manchu Dracula guy.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is astonishingly gruesome.
• Marat!

• "Sepulchral" is a beautiful word (like "cellar door," which is two words, but still...)

PAGE 123~

"She had no ticket, Jeff!" Bencolin leaned forward and slapped the arm of his chair impatiently. "Surely you know that if only for appearance's sake each member of the club must buy a ticket for the waxworks when entering. Those blue tickets! You must keep them constantly in mind!"

~RP

Paperback 67: Law from Back Beyond (Chuck Martin) / Vengeance Valley (Roy Manning)

Paperback 67: Ace Double D-46 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Law from Back Beyond / Vengeance Valley
Author: Chuck Martin / Roy Manning
Cover artist: Norman Saunders / John Leone


Best thing about this cover:

• This man is practicing the little-known art of rock phrenology.
• Jane has to ride out to retrieve her mentally-deranged brother, who suffers from the perpetual delusion that he is at the Alamo. Good thing his gun is merely an incense burner.

Best things about this other cover:

• I feel as if I could cut-and-paste this guy into another scene and he would look far more like a guy dancing than a guy falling off a demon-possessed horse (look at its eyes! vacant!)

RP

Paperback 53: Croydon 57

Paperback 53: Croydon 57 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Love-Crazy Millionaire
Author: Gordon Semple
Cover artist: Bernard Safran


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, this guy really loves boats.
• Are they on a boat? Because they are both oddly listing toward my left.
• She appears to be very drunk - I cannot imagine her speaking in anything but very slurred speech. Also, her hands are quite mannish. And no one that blond should have eyebrows that black.
• That man is one of the grosser-looking men in paperback cover history. He has a weirdly soft baby face with greasy, patchy old-man hair and an oddly hairy and wrinkly neck.
• "Office wife" is a great 1950's concept. Many paperbacks "worry" aloud about this phenomenon.
• Artist's signature right across the back of the chair - Bernard Safran was a very accomplished illustrator and artist. For more on his career, go here.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, the writing is really, truly horrible.
• I'm going to start saying "Wanna bet, Sue!?" any time I want to sound menacing.
• "Queerly, it intrigued her" - hmmm, now I'm interested.

RP

Paperback 22: Graphic 87

Paperback 22: Graphic 87 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Homicidal Lady
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• More terrible cover art from Graphic. Her face is fantastic, but everything else is a complete mess. Smeary, indistinct, off-model. Plus, she has man hands. Homicidal ... Lady?
• Why is there an old cheeseburger wrapper just inside her overcoat?
• What is that arc by her face that kind of looks like a cross between a smudge and a dust bunny? Smoke?
• The lettering on the title - again, it's subprofessional. Like an apprentice, or an apprentice's monkey, did the lettering
• Lady on the cover looks just like Rita Hayworth in Gilda

RP

Paperback 7 - Pyramid 139

Paperback 7 - Pyramid 139 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: I Was a House Detective
Author: Dev Collans with Stewart Sterling
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "I Was an Armless Psychopath"
• "Why, officer, we were just ... this is my ... he doesn't ... we're not ... say, you're handsome."
• Why is there a giant spotlight - and apparently a smoke machine - in the hotel hallway?
• This looks like a still from a low-budget production of Sartre's "No Exit"

But wait, there's more. The back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

Publisher couldn't afford real art for the back cover, so he cut-and-pasted photos onto a background drawn by a fifth-grader who hadn't yet mastered perspective, or, well, anything else about drawing. I think that lady is trying to open the "door" with some kind of beverage.

The very first page of this book promises that the book will tell you "what happens when":

• ... the "Lizzies" and "Queens" have a ball in the lobby [!?]
• ... a big-business convention brings on the girls - and the girls go wild [whether they show their tits is unclear]

RP