Paperback 362: Bury Me Deep / Harold Q. Masur (Pocket Books 558)

Paperback 362: Pocket Books 558 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Bury Me Deep
Author: Harold Q. Masur
Cover artist: William Wirts

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• A quintessential keyhole cover (yes, it's a thing) — and an early one. Turns reader into an implied voyeur / peeping tom.
• 1948 (or thereabouts) seems to be a turning point in cover art — covers start to become more sensational, more sexual, more lurid ... If you click on "1947" or earlier in the tags for this site (sidebar), you'll see what I mean. Not sure why 1948 should be that year [the year of the first Kinsey Report!] ... but by the '50s, lurid and sensational will be the norm.
• I wish I could hear her undoubtedly learned disquisition on the merits of half-naked whisky-drinking.
• That underwear looks painted on, like she was drawn naked but then repurposed for this cover.
• Something about her face is off-kilter and strange, and her thumbless whisky-claw is mega-disturbing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Even the tagline is sensational. Sweet.
• "The lawyer in him" has the better cliché—hey, "inner man," who looks at a sexy woman in her underwear and thinks "gift horse!?"
• "Newest detective sensation," HA ha. How did that turn out, Scott Jordan?

Page 123~

Another shot exploded. I saw a spurt of flame from the muzzle spit luridly into the darkness beside a tree not fifty yards away. I arched my back, screamed like a frightened horse, threw out my arms and tumbled drunkenly to the ground.

Mmm, manly.

~RP

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Paperback 355: Strip-Tease Girl / Cal Anton (Beacon B266)

Paperback 355: Beacon B266 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Strip-Tease Girl
Author: Cal Anton
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $40


Best things about this cover:

• I'm pretty sure this is why God invented paperbacks.
• The topic, the painting, and the cover copy are all exquisitely sleazypaperbackesque.
• That is one fantastically ugly table.
• Pardon my ogling, buy her rack is phenomenal. A hair's breadth away from seeming fake.
• Love that "—AND DELIVERED" is in red! Hot. Feverish, even.
• Also love the lack of a possessive pronoun before "JADED SENSES"; are they hers, his, yours? Who can say?

Best things about this back cover:

• She also couldn't center her words or stick to one font, and was overly enamored of tiny type.
• "Goggling!" "Queenly hips!?"
• "Inevitably..." HA ha. "I mean, come on—what else was she gonna do with that body?"
• "... and even a woman or two" HELLO! Way to bury the lead, guys.

Page 123~

"Well, I know the place like a school teacher knows a book. Shoot the questions. Mike," he ordered, "how about a head on this coffee?"

Conversation continues with equally forced-sounding attempts at colloquial patter. "Like a school teacher knows a book" is about the flat-fallingest simile I've ever heard. "Which book?" "Oh, you know, *a* book."

~RP

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Paperback 354: Coming Out Party / Kimberly Kemp (Midwood 32-448)

Paperback 354: Midwood 32-448 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Coming Out Party
Author: Kimberly Kemp
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• "Don't mind me, I'm just taking a bubble bath in the sink..."
• Man, Charlotte Rae was *hot* in her youth.
• Soap bubbles look more like shaving cream.
• If nothing else, her right nipple will be very clean.
• Girl in doorway is striking a very unsexy "sexy" pose.
• Did "coming out" have the same meaning for gay people then as it does now?

Best things about this back cover:

• Front cover calls her a "houseguest," but this blurb makes her sound more like a sex slave.
• You can't just go out there and start sinning. You have to train. With a master.
• Oh, "Greenwich Village!" Well, you know what that means ...
• "Cute but topless???" I think you mean "and."

Page 123~

"I'm not a good actress, but I'm a real sexpot in front of an audience. Or in front of a camera. I found out that it does something to me. I get all excited. And I'm pretty sure that it registers on film. Isn't that important?"

And of course he then makes her prove it. Cinema!

~RP

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Paperback 350: Strumpets' Jungle / Sloane Britain & Any Man's Plaything / Rubel (Dollar Double 951)

Paperback 350: Dollar Double 951 (1st ptg / 1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Strumpets' Jungle // Any Man's Plaything
Authors: Sloane Britain // Rubel (HA ha, one name, like Collette, or Ludacris)
Cover artists: Robert Bonfils // Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $40


Best things about the "Strumpets' Jungle" cover:

• One of the craziest covers I own. First of all, full frontal female nudity? They cover the nipples with a narrow tree branch, but leave the crotch wide open!? Is the dark patch hair? Or does she shave and that's just a shadow? These tree lesbians are wild!
  
• Second, tree lesbians?
• I find this cover incredibly creepy, as it reminds me of nothing so much as the crucifixion. There's Jesus lesbian, and then Thief #1 lesbian over there, and then ... I guess the Thief #2 lesbian is off-screen. Really horrifying. Or else they are being eaten by tree creatures (Ents?) who really love voluptuous lesbians. Or else this is some sylvan lesbian sex rite that my lesbian friends have somehow never told me about.
• I'm no ecosystem expert, but that doesn't look like a "jungle."
• And in case you didn't know, "3rd Sex" = homosex...ual

Best things about the "Any Man's Plaything" cover:

• She is antithesis of women on the other cover, as she is wearing panties *and* concealing her pubic region with her hands.
• There's nothing very "shocking" looking about this cover. Pretty girl in her underwear, not letting you peek at her crotch. Only the shoes suggest she has anything on her mind besides shutting the door on you and getting some rest. All I know about her is that she has very good balance.

Page 123 of "Strumpets' Jungle"~

"Paula, I don't understand. What were they ...?"
"Never mind that for now," I said. "We've got to get to our classrooms."

~RP

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Paperback 345: Devil Ray, Devil Woman / Seymour Shubin (Beacon 167)

Paperback 345: Beacon 167 (PBO, 1960—Australia ed.)

Title: Devil Ray, Devil Woman
Author: Seymour Shubin
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: not for sale (gift of Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• "Do you like my hair up, or ..." "Yeah yeah, sure, now are you gonna get naked or not?"
• OK, which is it? A Flaming Story or a Sophisticated, Dramatic Tale. I got no time for this wishy-washy in-between crap.
• "To Most" is my very favorite part of the cover copy. I mean, "in search of forbidden excitement" makes so much more sense, but any reasonably qualified copy writer could come up with that. It takes a true master of whatthefuckery to rephrase it so that we're left wondering not just what the excitement is, but for whom it is not "forbidden" but entirely licit.
• She has a nice figure. I'm just sayin'...
• I hope she's standing well away from the bed, bec. otherwise she is a giant or that smoking (!) hot guy is criminally diminutive.
• That's one slab of a bed.
• Worst title! "The woman, she is a like a Devil Ray, in that she is devilish, and ... Devil Ray has the word "devil" in it, so ..." Imagination!

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. It's a text bloodbath back here.
• So this is an ordinary soft-core sex novel, with stock footage from a Jacques Cousteau special? I can't wait.

Page 123~

"Sure no one a beer?" and now Tony was in the doorway.

I swear to you that I have typed that exactly as written, character for character.

~RP

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PS I *thought* I'd seen this cover somewhere before. Well, I hadn't, but here's something close: Paperback 63, Variation on a Theme:

Paperback 344: 5 Beds to Mecca / Rod Gray (Tower 43-944)

Paperback 344: Tower 43-944 (PBO, 1968)

Title: 5 Beds to Mecca (The Lady from L.U.S.T. #4)
Author: Rod Gray
Cover artist: Uncredited [Paul Rader]

Yours for: Nope—staying here (another gift of the generous Doug Peterson)

Best things about this cover:

• As Doug can testify, this one left me completely speechless—or, rather, it left me saying "Oh my god" repeatedly until I took it all in. I mean ... I've seen the gun/crotch motif before, but scimitar/crotch! That's a new one.
• Well, that's *one* way of taking care of unwanted hair ...
• I am guessing that you were so blown away the vagina dentata that it took you a while to notice that this lady is also carrying a gun (!) in her completely useless garter (!!?).
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E. spawned a number of these kinds of parodies in the '60s. "L.U.S.T." is one of the better acronyms I've seen, in that the literal explanation is completely plausible.
• I think this cover is designed to make you (man) wish you were that sword. Legs spread, hands wrapped around hilt ... etc. Fans of subtlety will have to look elsewhere.

Best things about this back cover:

• Not just white slavery—Milk-white slavery!
  
• "Hypodermics hiss" is my favorite part of this nonsensical paragraph.
• Kama Sutra? Huh. I guess east is east is east.
• "Shiekh" is apparently a brand of shoes. I've never seen that spelling otherwise.

Page 123~

"Unbelievable," she whispered. "There is no sag, despite their size. It is as if they were equipped with springs."

Other randomly pulled quotes include:

"My vaginae constrictor muscles were the only part of me that moved."

And

"You have a couple of cannons yourself," he quipped, eyeballing my female-female breasts, all 38 inches D cup of them, where they stood at attention, brown nipples saluting. They were rock hard as they aimed themselves at his broad chest."

"Let's shoot each other," I suggested.

~RP

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Paperback 332: The Cruel Dawn / Alfred Viazzi (Popular Library 440)

Paperback 332: Popular Library 440 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Cruel Dawn
Author: Alfred Viazzi
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "I said, I'm gonna wash that gray right out of your hair! Hold still!"
• "Demon, I cast thee out!"
• Gloria liked to end every dance with a vicious take-down.
• Normally I find things like garter belts and cleavage quite hot, but between the dowdiness of that nightgown and the oddly porcelain quality of this woman's skin, this lady just isn't doing it for me. Also, maybe it's just me, but she seems a bit standoffish.

Best things about this back cover:

• Her body is blonde? That's more info than you usually get in an opening description.
• Oooh, a "lusty bordello." Not one of those Puritanical bordellos you see from time to time. Those are sooo annoying.
• A decent, non-wanton actress would, of course, have taken the time to get properly dressed before shielding a man with her body. Pfft. Whore.

Page 123~

The last thing he remembered was the thud and pain of a boot kicking hard into the side of his head.

~RP

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Paperback 330: The Joy Boys / Walt Grove (Dell First Edition

Paperback 330: Dell First Edition B136 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Joy Boys
Author: Walt Grove
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks!

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "'I Dream of Jeannie?' Fuck that. Jeannie dreams of me!"
• I submit to you that this woman would look much better if that horse's tail were removed from the back of her head.
• That spider has six legs. Is that guy's squadron called "The Mighty Ticks?"
• "The Joy Boys" ... does not evoke aviation. It evokes something slightly more tawdry—like GLORY HOLE meets RENT BOY.

Best things about this back cover:

• Walt Grove, doing his best Mickey Spillane imitation. Tough sell.
• Seriously? "The Joy Boys" is the successor to "DOWN!?" Who knew the world of aviation had such a strong undercurrent of fellatio?

Page 123~

He wished he would stop thinking about that, but he had been around and he knew.

Looks like he's been behind the barn.

~RP

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Paperback 329: The Girls' Place / Saxon Craig (Evening Reader 1247)

Paperback 329: Evening Reader 1247 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Girls' Place
Author: Saxon Craig
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Joan Collins used to be Hot.
• The tops of those stockings suggest that the artist was planning on drawing a garter belt and then forgot/ran out of time—weirdly peaked.
• Top lady does not appear to be experiencing "Shame." That lower lady, though, yeesh. She's either wasted or sleeping or both. Or maybe she just lost a contact.
• Did you ever see "Sixteen Candles?" If so, do you remember when Jake's hot girlfriend gets sloshed and then gets her hair caught in a door jamb when Jake shuts the door on her, and she's just stuck sitting there until Jami Gertz and some other girl come over and cut her loose with a giant pair of scissors, and so she has a ridiculously huge swath of hair cut out of the back of her head? I think her character was based on the lower half of this cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• You had me at "Vixen..."
• Please, will one of you, this Halloween, dress up as "the witch in the leotards and the red pumps" from "The Girls' Place." It will mean so much to me. Take pictures.

Page 123~

In her world, love was hard to come by, and even Lasky's brutalizing love was better than nothing at all—even if it took form only as sexual expression.

Yeah, that wasn't so hot; let's try this:

Page 80~

But Pat refused to stop, and after a moment or two of trying to push the nurse away, she succumbed to the rise of her passion a second time. Groping blindly, she managed to get the fat nurse to turn so that their love could be enjoyed simultaneously, and though her body was foul smelling, the lovely brunette could not resist the temptation to indulge herself in the one thing that roused her more than anything else. And so they clung together there for many minutes, giving themselves up to the mutual enjoyment of each other, until finally they both found the release they sought.

Walking the fine line between sexy (lesbian nurse sex!) and gross ("foul smelling!?") ... Just be happy I spared you the part about how Jeanne "rocketed over the cliff of climax to plunge into the canyon of satisfied passion."

~RP

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Paperback 310: Four O'Clock on Friday / Philip Storey (Novel Library U177)

Paperback 310: Novel Library U177 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Four O'Clock on Friday
Author: Philip Storey
Cover artist: Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• Oddly unmoving for a peek-a-boo nightie cover.
• "I like to paint with my hands — much more sensual than painting with rollers or brushes. I call this color 'The Blood of My Latest Victim.'"
• "Pretend you're shopping..." — sorry, but your role-playing skills need some work.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Tits!" — ha ha. Klassy.
• I love how the plot description basically alleviates us from the burden of reading for the plot, thus freeing us up to scan quickly for the "part-lesbian" (?!) scenes.
• I also love how the cover copy seems hell-bent on debasing the word "hero" as much as possible. Starting with "The hero is a personnel manager..."
• "This, however, is not complicated enough" — I'm gonna disagree with you there, partner — though the "weird brother" plot does have, uh, novelty on its side.

Page 123~

"You could have knocked me over to hear Celia had been married to Fred all along. You knew it? Oh yes, darling, I can see it in your handsome face. Don't be made at me, love, I'll never talk."

It would be hard to express to you how poorly this book is written without also boring you to death. Also, I think "Don't be mad at me, love, I'll never talk" should have been the tagline of this book.

~RP

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Paperback 309: Yesterday's Love / James T. Farrell (Avon 260)

Paperback 309: Avon 260 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1950)

Title: Yesterday's Love
Author: James T. Farrell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• You know what they say: "Yesterday's Love, Today's Floating Head"
• Marion celebrates her victory in the "Ornamented Boobs" contest by ordering up a pizza for her and the floating head of her recently deceased boyfriend: "Oh, and get extra anchovies. I can't taste for shit since I became incorporeal."
• "Yes, hello, Home Depot? My wallpaper seems to have grown a head. Also, it's astonishingly ugly. Can you help?"
• "Studs Lonigan" always struck me as a great porn name. "Long Studsigan" might be better, though perhaps too spot-on.

Best things about this back cover:

• Yes, I knew it. "Frankness!" I was just perusing this back cover going "come on, some form of the word 'frank.'" — "These stories will sear you with their frankness!" Then they will put you in the oven of "brutal awareness" and gently roast you until you are cooked through.
• Is James T. Farrell the reason so many writers and hipster affect a scroungey "I could give a fuck" look. This guy's got it down pat. He's like the original. "Hair-combing's for squares! Fuck ties! Where are my cigarettes?"

Page 123~

She went to Sonny. Harry looked at her with utter contempt. His eyes were full of hatred. He got up and turned on the radio. He could hear the child babbling and gaily talking to its mother as she washed him. He turned off the radio and sat there waiting until they would take their walk. Then they would eat their supper, see another moving picture, and come back to the hotel. [final paragraph of "The Sport of Kings"]

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 47

Title: Reno Rendezvous (Popular 60-2119, 1st ptg, 1967)
Author: Leslie Ford (last one, I swear)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7

• Kinky.
• I like how the accidental abrasions on her mouth make her look like a vampire.
• "Thinking about divorce? ... Think Again!" — that should have been the tagline.
• From the neck (*just* below the rope) down, this woman is hot.
• I wish this artist got credit. I'd like to know the name behind this painter with a predilection for neck-snapping. I'll just call him "Snappy." See also...

And the back of "Reno Rendezvous" ...

• "A flying visit to Reno.." — why does that phrasing sound off?
• I wouldn't worry about the "shadow of a noose." I'd worry about the actual noose. That one. There. Around your neck.

Page 123~

She raised her eyes to his, round and blue as delft saucers.

Not so much sexy as comically cartoonish. "You remind me of this anime I saw once..."

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Books 8-11

A Mess of March ... I'm moving all the NGAIO MARSH titles to the front of the queue (literally, Roger Daltrey sang the word "queue" as I typed it just now ... freaky coincidence) because one of my readers seems to have a thing for her :)

Book 8: Singing in the Shrouds (Berkley, 1960)
Cover artist: photo?

• A book that takes on the collapsing telecommunications system, apparently
• Her miniskirt has its own miniarm.

• Finally, someone has tamed the wild, native, animalistic mystery novel and made it "civilized literature." Where's my houseboy with the tea!?

Book 9: Death of a Peer (Pocket 475, 1947)
Cover artist: Aargh, uncredited

• This lady's got Fear Hand (TM). In fact, she appears to have a double case of it.
• Ouch. Skeleton key to the eye. That's gotta hurt.

• Well if it's WEALTHY, of course we care...

Book 10: Death of a Fool (Avon T-254, late '50s)
Cover artist: Uncredited

• Fear Hand! (TM)
• Jenny recoils in horror as she sees that her gardener has failed to blow all the leaves off her front lawn. And squirrels on her bird-feeders!? Oh, the humanity.

• Inspector Alleyn arrives to cut through the heathen nonsense of the simple souls. Civilization! God save the Queen, wot!

Book 11: Swing, Brother, Swing (Pocket 762, 1951)
Cover artist: Lew Keller

• "Swing, Brother, Swing ... for Hepcats only, man!"
• Secret ingredient to all good mystery cover copy — just add "... with DEATH!"

• I'm sorry, I started laughing at "accordion" and haven't stopped yet

~RP

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Donations to the Collection: Lust Lodge

Title: Lust Lodge (Nightstand Books NB1621, 1962)
Author: Don Holliday
Cover artist: that guy who did so many of their covers ... whatsisname!

Happy Halloween! You're welcome.

• The Hand!! "Nice to meet you Mrs. ... I ... uh ..."
• X marks the spot, dang!
• Did they even plan to draw a guy into this shot originally? His sliver of head and Random Hand look like total (awesome) afterthoughts.
• I like her underwears. I choose to ignore the fact that she has Ronald McDonald hair.

• Yet another classic from the Absurd Two-Word Intro .../... Outro school of back cover writing.
• To say this is bad writing is really to give bad writing a worse name than it already has.
• Three "wantons" (counting front and back)! Plural, adjectival, possessive. That's gotta be a record.

Page 123~ (brace yourselves ...)

"Don't be melodramatic," she said, blowing smoke once more. It hung in a grey cloud above her, as though prognosticating a storm at the cloud. How symbolic I've become, Beverly thought, looking at the cloud.

As though doing a what at the where now?

~RP

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Paperback 291: The Maltese Falcon / Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 268)

Paperback 291: Pocket Books 268 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Maltese Falcon
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Leo Manso / Stanley Meltzoff

Yours for: Hell no

The following is so self-evidently awesome that I refuse to sully it with my usual commentary:

Here's the original 1944 cover:



And now here's the cover of the DUST JACKET (you heard me) they issued several years later (this image went on to grace the cover of a later Permabooks edition)



Page 123:

"Morning, Sam. Set down and bite an egg." The hotel-detective stared at Spade's temple. "By God, somebody maced you plenty!"

~RP

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Paperback 258: Perverted Love Slave / Adam Calin (Royal Line 127)

Paperback 258: Royal Line RL 127 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Perverted Love Slave
Author: Adam Calin
Cover artist: in witness protection

Yours for: Unavailable


Best things about this cover:

• Worst. Alarm Clock. Ever. "Alright, alright, I'm up ... dang!"
• "In this house we wear bras and *only* bras! No [crack!] bracelets! [crack!]"
• The lady in the bed is, uh, hot. The lady with the whip is, uh, not. She's pasty and misshapen and has one of the Fry Guys on her head.
• Debbie was distracted from her dominatrix duties when she suddenly noticed a mysterious, massive dollop of lemon frosting at the foot of the bed.
• "She was a lust slave to his every depraved desire" — "his?" Wow, "he" managed to get himself a superior boob job.

Best things about this back cover:

• This feels like it was translated from the Bulgarian in some horrible translating forced labor camp.
• I mean, how am I supposed to do my job? This thing is self-parodic.
• I like how that first paragraph appears to be someone writing out loud, in real time. Stop transcribing every thought you have!
• Misspelling "Jekyll" helps them avoid messy fictional defamation lawsuits.
• "Shame Whims" made me literally LOL.
• My god, the font size, the spacing ... it's all so off, so wrong, so tawdry — the cover copy equivalent of a snuff film.

Page 123~

"I mentioned you to Mrs. Tomane. She's interested in writing. She would like to meet you, since you're writing a novel that has a chance to be published."

"Who told you that?"

~RP

Paperback 241: Mother, Daughter and Lover / G.G. Fickling (Softcover Library B1069S)

Paperback 241: Softcover Library B1069S (2nd ptg?, 1967ish)

Title: Mother, Daughter and Lover
Author: G. G. Fickling
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Does my bra strap smell weird to you?"
• "The Intimate Confessions of a Beach Boy" — Brian Wilson at his nadir ... or apex, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
• We've seen Fickling's work before — they (yes, they) wrote the Honey West novels. I like that their name is a mash-up of "fickle" and "fucking" ... and "finger-licking," sort of.
• I like the idea that there is a ranking system for the relative explosiveness of Sex Triangles.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Well preserved?!?!" HA ha. Like a mummy.
• "Her eyes ... stopped at my wet trunks and narrowed." That's pretty good, as sex fiction cover copy goes. "Youthful, upthrust flesh," less so.

Page 123~

Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pane of glass.

It's bad enough that you have to use the painful adverb "shatteringly" — do we really need the simile? Glass is the First thing evoked by "shattering." I mean, what else is the shattering supposed to signal? "Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pot pie."

~RP

P.S. I was thrilled recently to hear that my blog had inspired one of my readers to start her own vintage pb collection. Check out one of her initial purchases here. It's ... jaw-dropping.

Paperback 238: She Woke to Darkness / Brett Halliday (Dell 867)

Paperback 238: Dell 867 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: She Woke to Darkness
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Schulz

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "She Woke to a Massive Head Wound"
• Doesn't everyone wake to darkness from time to time? I mean, when you gotta go ...
• Her left hip has grown its own hand. Creepy.
• That's one big, rectangular pool of blood.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love the caricatures of the characters. Second one looks more like an 80's fashion model than a 50's dame who likes capital-M Martinis.
• Here's where Mike Shayne and I differ: I prefer vintage broads and vivacious brandy.
• "Who Is This Girl?" - early, eventually discarded title of Madonna's hit "Who's That Girl?"

Page 123~

The duplicating office had been able to shed no light on Halliday's disappearance. He had left with the original manuscript under his arm about six o-clock, and that was all they knew.

That's right. Writer "Brett Halliday" is a character in a novel by ... writer Brett Halliday.

~RP

Paperback 233: The Sisterhood / Sheldon Lord (pseud. of Lawrence Block) (Softcover Library S95189)

Paperback 233: Softcover Library S95189 (unknown ptg, 1970?)

Title: The Sisterhood
Author: Sheldon Lord (pseud. of Lawrence Block)
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "Oh, your Scottie-hair wig is so soft ... it makes me want to unbutton my shirt..."
• If there's one thing lesbians love more than anything else, it's grooming each other like monkeys.
• The tall one looks like a transsexual Joan Collins ... is that redundant?
• "swamp of bisexual love!" - worst thing about it: all the damned mosquitoes

Best things about this back cover:

• "For Women Only" - somehow, I doubt that
• "Happy Lesbos Hunting Ground" should totally, Totally be the name of a Vermont resort
• "Countess!" O, man, this stuff is rich
• "Infiltrate men's professions" - holy crap, it's an allegory about feminism. E.R.A. = exotic lesbian plot
• "strange" = paperback cover word of choice for referring to the gays. See also "twilight world," "in-between," etc.

Page 123~

Persistent, isn't he? she thought to herself. Then into the phone, "Look, Brad. Let's take this from the top, huh? I mean - besides the fact that I happen to be, shall we say, occupied - there's something that maybe you haven't thought of."

"Huh? What?" he said desperately.

~RP

P.S. Everyone within earshot of this blog is going to want to go out and pick up / order a copy of "Dames, Dolls & Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire" (Dark Horse, 2009). It's a loving, glossy, gorgeous tribute to the greatest paperback cover artist that ever lived (IMHO). Literally, every page I turn, I find myself whispering "wow..." It's a reasonably affordable oversized paperback - the large scale reproductions of the art are what really make this book worthwhile. Plus it has lots of insights into Maguire's process, some of the photos he used as references, pencil sketches, etc. See an online flipbook version of the book here. Then buy it. Now.


P.P.S. Article by writer Brian Ritt about sleaze fiction master Orrie Hitt - find it here (this is why I "Follow" Christa Faust on Twitter)

Paperback 229: Demented / Donald Jorden Young (Gold Star Books IL7-19)

Paperback 229: Gold Star Books IL7-19 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Demented
Author: Donald Jorden Young
Cover artist: uncredited (though I credited it to "Robert Maguire" for some reason - looks at least as much like the work of Mitchell Hooks)

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Instant Klassic - unread, near-perfect condition ... vibrant colors ... a stripping nurse (!?) ... a fifth-rate publishing house ... a text-book example of the Floating Head motif ... absolutely gorgeous, in all its sleazy marginality
• "My prescription: take two of ... these."
• "Anthony Perkins is ... Frankenstein's monster in ... 'Demented!'"
• I like that the blurb features all three people depicted on the cover: "nurse," "ex-GI" with "war-born neurosis," and "weak professor," who frankly looks quite hale and handsome, if a bit disturbed by the hovering, giant head of Captain Mind Control...

Best things about this back cover:

• This is basically a tepid, watered down version of the plot to "The Stars, My Destination" by Alfred Bester.
• Love the random extra space between "perverted" and "lusts." It's like the copywriter tried many different versions of the final word and forgot to adjust the spacing when he'd finally decided on the winner. "Ah, 'lusts' ... le mot juste!"
• As for the nurse ... Check her out here, in a primmer, more demure moment...

Page 123 ... is too boring, so here's something from the teaser page that opens the book:

Encouraged, he put an arm completely around her, so that one hand rested on her right breast. Encountering no objection he slid his hand into her blouse, which was low-cut with a natural inviting slit [?]. Feeling no bra against his hand, he was exhilarated holding her breast, so smooth and full, if a bit cool [!!?].

~RP