Paperback 331: 5:45 to Suburbia / Vin Packer (Gold Medal s731)

Paperback 331: Gold Medal s731 (PBO, 1958)

Title: 5:45 to Suburbia
Author: Vin Packer (pseud. of Marijane Meaker)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $50

This copy is SIGNED


Best things about this cover:

• Douchey salesman by day ... vampire by night.
• That is the color red seen only on 1950s/60s paperbacks. Looks like the work of Barye Phillips, but the book gives no credit.
• Love stories of tawdry goings-on in the suburbs. Post-war pop fiction kind of obsessed with the suburbs, as they were relatively new and probably put on a sanitized, happy air that made writers sick—i.e. easy pickins.

Best things about this back cover:

• One of the few back covers that makes me genuinely want to read the book. The language isn't just descriptive—it bounces: his wife's impeccable tweeds, her wicked martini, their daughter's (!) long legs, the phrase "hatchet man," all great. Even the language of addiction in the second paragraph is compelling, and timely—makes Charlie Gibson sound like a different species of Burroughs' "Junky." Mmm, '50s underbelly. Delicious.
• Despite the obvious opening, I'm finding it hard to make any good jokes about the name "Charlie Gibson" (a onetime prominent morning TV host, in case you didn't know).

Vin Packer is Marijane Meaker (also Ann Aldrich, for her explicitly lesbian writing; M.E. Kerr, for her young adult fiction). She is a really compelling literary figure and a very good writer. I recommend her memoir about her relationship with Patricia Highsmith. In doing some research on the Mattachine Society (for a future writing project on a different pulpy literary figure), I came across a bunch of stuff by and about Meaker—a controversial figure among some gay people. Apparently, not all of Meaker's gay characters (and the lesbians she chronicles in her non-fiction books) were "sympathetic" enough for some. Hurray for someone's caring more about giving a realistic and complex picture of humanity rather than sanitizing and enhaloing her characters in order to push a political agenda. I really want to meet this woman, who (last I checked) is still alive. I own close to a dozen of her books, many of them signed (I can only hope the sigs are authentic, as I didn't get them myself).

Page 123~

"Very simple, boss—the child's in love with you."
"Hogwash!" Bruce Cadence snorted. "I'm old enough to be her father."
"That's the point." Keene laughed.
He waved and went out.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 21

Title: Too Late the Phalarope (Signet S1290, 1956)
Author: Alan Paton
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: Whatever

• The "phalarope" is a wading bird, and not, as it sounds, a rope made out of penis.
• The background of this cover is an abstract horror show. Total fail.

• Well, N.Y. Herald Tribune, you were half right.
• Publishing imperative: do not, under any circumstances, mention "race" on the cover. "Instead of 'white,' why not try 'most respected'? And for 'black,' consider some version of 'forbidden.'"

Page 123~

And he would not eat in the sun, but in the house; and he would not eat at all, but drank many cups of coffee, and smoked the cigarettes. And again he said, what's the talk amongst the black people, Johannes? But the boy could tell him nothing of account.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 121: Bucks County Report / Irwin Wallach (Tower 43-690)

Paperback 121: Tower 43-690 (1st ptg, 1966)
Title: Bucks County Report
Author: Irwin Wallach
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "Frankly, Scarlett, this mattress is lumpy"
• For such a hot topic (sex in suburbia) this is a terribly tedious cover. If it weren't for the tepid embrace there on the bed, it would look like a government report of some kind. "Bucks County Report: The Roads Have Been Repaved" ["Yay!"]
• The publication of the Kinsey reports on male and female sexuality in the late 40s and early 50s created a public discourse on sexuality that (ironically?) gave license to sex fiction publishers to promote their work with cover copy appealing to people's alleged scientific / civic interest in the subject. Peyton Place + Kinsey Report => books like this one.

Best things about this back cover:

• Awesome dated vocabulary: "jerkwater"! "squaresville"!
• "... then along came Wilson" - I knew that guy was a perv

Page 123~

Bucks County parties were the easiest for Sam because he did not have to participate beyond having his body in attendance and a glass in his hand. But this particular party held a strangeness for him.

~RP

Paperback 90: The Hot Diary (Howard J. Olmsted) / Ring Around a Rogue (J. M. Flynn) (Ace Double D-459)

Paperback 90: Ace Double D-459 (PBO 1960 / PBO 1960)

Title: The Hot Diary / Ring Around a Rogue
Author: Howard J. Olmsted / J.M. Flynn
Cover artist: uncredited / uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (early May 2008)


Best things about this cover:

• Don't make Robert Stack angry. You wouldn't like Robert Stack when he's angry
• This cover is great - quintessential hard-boiled with a mod style (again, love pink in my hard-boiled covers). They are both dressed impeccably. Her dress is fierce (love the black accents, especially the band and bow toward the hemline), and he carries off a trench-coat way better than most dopey goons.
• Does this count as "bondage?" I'm counting it. I imagine that her hands are tied. That, or she lost her right arm in the war or a freak fishing accident.
• "Never Write About Murder" - uh ... you just did.

PAGE 23~

I wouldn't have minded if she'd slapped me or swore at me. But her calm, unmoved acceptance of the kiss frosted me. It hit me where I lived, in my pride.

Best things about this cover:

• These two covers make a nice pair: "Things To Do With a Girl When You're Armed": "You can grab her like this ... or kiss her like this ... it's up to you."
• Here's a sexless sex scene if I've ever seen one. He looks ... wooden. "Let's see, I put my gun ... here, and my left hand reaches around like ... so. OK. What do I do with my lips again?" Etc.
• The painting here does nothing to up the eros. The paint looks hastily daubed on. She has that horrid bottle-blond rubbery head look (see the "Finger Man" cover), and rarely have I been so unmoved by so much female skin.
• "A Car, A Girl and A Gun" - or "Copywriter Gives Up, Decides Life's Meaningless" - that's him there, plummeting over that cliff in the car.

PAGE 123~

Deal grabbed him by the shirt front, yanked him from the sofa, and backhanded the expressionless face. Blood trickled from the corner of the flat lips but Chiong did not cry out.

~RP

Paperback 52: Popular Library G517

Paperback 52: Popular Library G517 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: A Race of Rebels
Author: Andrew Tully
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours For: $8 (SOLD - 4/18/08)


Best things about this cover:

• She has the most orgasmic mouth in (non-porn) paperback history; that, or she is singing.
• Some blurbs are prescient - others ... not so much. "Good as Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms" must surely have been the last think Robert Ruark ever said as a literary critic, or generally credible human being.
• "A Race of Rebels" - Which race? "You know ... brown folks ... live where it's hot ... always getting riled up and killing people ... that race!"
• I like how the rebels are basically ornamentation for our giant, white-hot white couple.
  

Orgasm Mouth: "Honey, we're surrounded by a race of rebels. I'm scared."
Burt Lancaster: "It's OK, we're like giant white gods to them - shut up and kiss me!"

I'm telling you, Nothing on the front or back cover tells you much of anything about where these so-called "rebels" are rebelling. Palm trees suggest the tropics. Maybe Central America. It's like the publishers don't want you to know? I mean ... check out the ambiguity on the back cover copy. It's like Location: Exotic!

• Again, I have to ask: Where Are We?* It's like the publishers know Americans hate politics and can't find countries on maps anyway. Apparently, all the reader wants to know is: will it be "frank"? (where "frank" = "loin-stirring")
• "Frank, blunt, toughly tender" = that's what she said

RP

*Answer: Cuba

Paperback 51: Royal Giant 27

Paperback 51: Royal Giant 27 (PBO / PBO)

Title: Confessions of a Psychiatrist / The Woman He Wanted
Author: Henry Lewis Nixon / Daoma Winston [!!??]
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited [but apparently signed "Uppwal..."]


Best things about this cover (where to begin!):

Confessions of a Psychiatrist:

• I love how the halo of light makes her look angelic, while the positioning of her hands ... let's just say that the less disturbing act she seems to be pantomiming involves strangling children.
• "You are getting sleepy ... hey, it's working!"
• Are they in a boudoir, or his office? Or does it matter anymore?
• What kind of bed is that? It's very low, and appears to consist only of a frame and a giant pillow.

The Woman He Wanted:

• Boobs! Blood! Yikes!
• LOVE the woman on the couch: "Best seat in the house! I'll just lie back here, cross my legs awkwardly, kick over my glass of whiskey, smoke a cigarette, and watch the brutality."
• "Daoma Winston" - I wanted to say that that is the ugliest, worst pseudonym ever, and yet ... "She" appears to have gone on to a long and successful career writing gothic / horror / fantasy stuff. Who knew? Notice how this bibliography of "her" work does not quite stretch back to The Woman He Wanted.

Best things about this back cover:

Copy writing at its histrionic, purply best:

Confessions:

• "Strange rite of nudity" - Nudity has its own rites now??? I am so behind the times.
• "Titillating treatise" = racy alliteration
• "Unblushing frankness" = code for sex sex sex - actually (a side note) "frank(ness)" is common in cover copy for books about all kinds of, let's say, "non-normative" sex-related behavior and conditions (e.g. gayness, transvestism, trans-sexuality, etc.). As I've said before, Kinsey gave this weird license to the publishing world to let loose with "educational" sex fiction.

Woman:

• He works at a "filling station" ... and he's "a crude man" ... HA ha
• STELL!! STELL!! (shout heard in sex-reversed version of "A Streetcar Named Desire")
• In case you missed it, his name is .... Stell. WTF?
• "... taunting him to splurge his passion on one of his other women" = too "frank" for my taste

RP

Paperback 41: Penguin-Signet 670

Paperback 41: Penguin-Signet 670 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Author: Horace McCoy
Cover artist: T.V.


"Oh Jim, they were so cruel. They made fun of my severe bangs and lime-green sweater. Hold me, Jim!"

"Yes, that's right, rest your head on my shoulder while I use my salt-and-pepper hair to bathe us both in a magical brown penumbra."

Best things about this cover:

• T.V. is a well-known cover artist. Don't know what the initials stand for. I just like that they are T.V. If only there were an artist with the initials V.C.R. or D.V.D.
• The man is embracing the woman, but even he can't help looking at her haircut with derision. "What was she thinking!?"

Horace McCoy is a fantastic hard-boiled writer. This novel is better known as a 1970s movie starring Jane Fonda. It's actually not about horses, or bad haircuts, at all. It's about marathon dancing during the Depression. And some dude who gets sentenced to the death penalty. How's that for an eloquent summary?

• He looks like the B-est of B-Movie actors
• You should know that his "resumé" here is Very Very typical of paperback writers at the time. I'm not sure we are to take much of it at face value. Seems like every other paperback writer had tough odd-jobs like carny or blackjack dealer or lion tamer or the like.

RP

PS, This book was published during the brief period of time when Penguin was transitioning to Signet / NAL in the U.S. (late 40's) - a handful of books have this hybrid imprint, "Penguin Signet." Shortly after the switch, Signet would make a boatload of money as Mickey Spillane's publisher.

Paperback 21: Graphic Giant G-216

Paperback 21: Graphic Giant G-216 (1st Graphic ptg, 1956)

Title: The Private Life of Helen of Troy
Author: John Erskine
Cover artist: Unknown :(

Yours for: $8

Best things about this cover:

• This is one of the worst cover paintings - in terms of pure artistic quality - that I've ever seen. Mucky, awkward, poor in detail. Just a mess. And yet...
• Nice rack. Seriously. Her bangs are terrible, but her boobs ... are not. There is another, earlier version of this same book (which I own) that is famous for its "nipple cover" - but you'll have to wait for that one.
• If the background is to be believed, Troy was destroyed by a nuclear holocaust of some kind
• This is a wraparound cover, where the painting continues onto the spine and then the back of the book...

Best thing about this back cover:

• First word: GAY!
• Boats make every cover better
• If I'm counting correctly, there are a total of 4 Helens on this book's front and back covers. That is almost certainly a record for appearances of one character on a single cover

RP

Paperback 14: Popular Libary-Eagle Books EB96

Paperback 14: Popular Library-Eagle Books EB96 (PBO, 1957)

Title: Just So Far
Author: Floyd Miller
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• It's not Myra's fault - few people can resist Rex
• "I said listen to my heart, you shirtless bastard!"
• I am as much a fan of big breasts as the next guy, but that right breast is disturbingly large, aggressive, and ominous - it's hard to imagine it has a twin nearby
• I wonder what she has in her supremely tiny pocket - the pocket, like her right breast, appears strangely ... centered. What kind of dress has pockets over the crotch?
• That boat is either menacingly phallic or hilariously random; I can't decide.

Best things about this back cover:

• In the upper left, that's about as close to someone's copping a feel as you are likely to see on a pre-1960 paperback
• It's Big Shirtless Ron again! You'll remember him from the front cover.
• He's shirtless, but she's got on spiked heels - doesn't anyone know how to dress for a picnic anymore?
• Bottom right: Is he preparing to kiss her or adjusting her cervical spine?
• "Myra became a complete wanton" - slightly better than becoming a complete won-ton.

RP

Paperback 10: Brandon House 1090

Paperback 10: Brandon House 1090 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Wayward Nude
Author: Jamison Bruce
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $15

Best things about this cover:

• There aren't many - the title promises so much, but the cover ... meh.
• The title is delightfully absurd - not sexy as much as comical; if you came across an actual "Wayward Nude," you would not be excited. You would be scared for her (if not yourself), and you would call the authorities.
• The "art" world is a frequent setting of paperback sex fantasies. Those bohemian artist-types will do Anything...
• OK, I haven't read this book, but I'm willing to bet that the "Nude" in question eventually gets involved sexually with other women - at least one. The phrase "half-world" is very suggestive of a homosexual underworld, although the more telling phrase would be "twilight world."
• Worst "Nude" cover ever - we get, what, like a millimeter of naked right hip? Pathetic. This cover would have been way hotter, needless to say, if that embrace had been "shot" from the other side. Instead, we get to thrill to the scintillating visual of ... a brown nightstand! Complete with pull-out drawer! And who could forget the white coffee cup!? Ugh.

This book is from late in my collection - 1967 - so the era of great cover painting and design is certainly behind us, but still, most sex paperbacks from this era are way, way more interesting than this neutered, puke-red disaster.

RP

The Great Paperback Project - Paperback 1: Ace Double D-27

As some of you know, and most of you don't - why would you? - I have a fairly sizable collection of Vintage Paperbacks. They date from about 1939 (the beginning of mass-market paperbacks) to about the mid-'60s, when book design (especially the covers) started to get unimaginative and ugly. I like beautiful books. With libraries so abundant, there is little point owning books any more unless they a. are very useful to you, or b. are beautiful. Cheaply made books with stupid, generic, cooked-up-in-some-marketing-lab covers depress the hell out of me. Someday, I will share with you my theory of contemporary book design (including the ironic similarity between the cover art of "women's literature" and snuff films), but for now, I begin a much happier project - putting my beautiful books on display, web-style! A few times a week, I will post a new picture of a vintage paperback cover from my collection. At that rate, my entire collection should be on-line in about ... 12-15 years. May we all live that long.

These covers will appear in no particular order (just as the books sit on the massive shelves next to me). I pull book off shelf, I scan, up it goes. I hope to spread some wee bit of appreciation for the beauty of mid-century paperbacks. I knew nothing about them until I stumbled on pictures in Robert Polito's great Jim Thompson biography. I found out that I could Never afford any of Thompson's paperback originals (not true, I own a couple now), but when I went into one of the many local used bookstores in Ann Arbor, I found that there were lots of Thompson-era (i.e. '50s) paperbacks lying around, lots of them with sensational cover art, and often available for reasonable prices. So I started buying. And buying. And Buying. This is what I did instead of writing my dissertation. Seriously. Thank you, Mellon Foundation. I know I didn't get my dissertation done during my fellowship like I was supposed to, but I amassed a hell of a paperback collection, so your money was well spent.

Paperback 1: Ace Double D-27 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1953)

Titles: Double Take / The Fingered Man
Authors: Mel Colton / Bruno Fischer
Cover artists: "Paul" / Norman Saunders

Yours for: $17

"Don't shoot him! He's doughy. Shoot me between the shoulder blades instead."

Best things about this cover:

• She is hot
• Tag line: "She Was Hard To Meet And Deadly To Know" - "Meet" and "Know" are like the least active active verbs ever ... unless "Know" is biblical, in which case I take it back
• Brightness of her clothes (and lips) against drabness of the rest of the scene
• Love the "Killer's Eye View" - you'll see a number of these in my collection
• The gun is her spine - lots and lots of interesting / disturbing juxtapositions of women and weapons in my collection
• That's the roomiest interior I've ever seen on a standard automobile
  

And on the Flip Side...

"OK, ma'am, first thing you're going to want to do is stop choking yourself."

Best things about this cover:

• Her insane eyes, and insaner mouth
  
• The haunted phone that has wrapped its tentacle around her arm and is now forcing her to choke herself
• The gigantic, unmelting blocks of ice that look like three cars trying to pull into a narrow glass tunnel
• The original title: "Quoth the Raven," HA ha. Literary!
• The artist's signature ("Saunders") nestled along the edge of the newspaper

Ace Doubles are iconic mid-century paperbacks. Almost all paperbacks cost just a quarter from 1939 well into the '50s, but Ace Doubles were a little more, for good reasons. Double the content, double the cover art. Value!

One down, a couple thousand to go.

RP