Paperback 881: Please Write For Details / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal R1922)

Paperback 881: Gold Medal R1922 (unknown ptg, 1968)

Title: Please Write for Details
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Uncredited [Mitchell Hooks]

Estimated value: $5-8

[Donation to the collection courtesy of L. Gagne]

Best things about this cover:

• Love how all those dorky guys are checking her out, but she's swiveled around to face you because, well, you're doing the same thing, big boy. She has the best "Like what you see?" face ever.
• I am not familiar with MacDonald's comedy writing. Most everything else I have by him is Travis McGee stuff.
• This book takes place at a "Mexican art colony," in case you're looking at the dorky guys and going "WTF?"

 Best things about this back cover:

• "Why, yes. Yes, I *do* enjoy those three things. You've piqued my interest. I *will* write for details. Thanks for your help."
• That first sentence is an epic, loony, self-parodying masterpiece. Can you hitch your starload to a bent?
• Great hyphen confusion. I read "love-lies" as "lies one tells about love"; but it's just "lovelies."
• John D. MacDonald, still staring down that fly on the ceiling.

Page 123~

Torrigan had the usual ideas, all right, but he was a lot easier to handle. Hinting you could be a real hell of a painter if he'd let you learn all about Life from him. Always trying to load your drinks. And that tired game that goes I've-just-got-my-arm-around-you-because-I'm-just-a-big-friendly-guy. No trick in handling him.

Nothing like a good, withering take-down of a leering phony. I like the knowing, implicitly female perspective. This seems like it might be worth reading.

~RP

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Paperback 607: Ain't Gonna Rain No More / John Faulkner (Gold Medal 927)

Paperback 607: Gold Medal 927 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Ain't Gonna Rain No More
Author: John Faulkner
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Whoa. Hey, uh, Dorothy? Your underwear called. It wants to know why you left it at home.
• How many signifiers of hickdom can you cram onto one cover? (answer: infinite). It's all whittlin' and pail sittin' and stove-humpin' with these folks. 
• "If this were a cartoon, my hat would've flown off my head *this* far!"

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, that dress is way more, uh, titillating in higher-contrast B&W. The distinction between polka dot and nipple is at this point irrelevant.
• "for furnish" ... what in the George Shaw is that?
• With the door jamb, she looked like she was striking a sexy little pose. Without the door jamb—lice-picking.

Page 123~

"I need my bucket up here to flang at her again, ifen I could git her back on the porch. She's been right shy about coming out on the porch sinct that there bucket chased her offen the end."

I sincerely hope that when I am old, I will have one of theme there flangin' buckets to flang at people who get up on my porch without permission.

~RP

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Paperback 502: Onionhead / Weldon Hill (Popular Library SP13)

Paperback 502: Popular Library SP13 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Onionhead
Author: Weldon Hill
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• This book is all about this guy's insatiable appetite. He likes to eat. Hence "onion." And "head."
• "Oh, Onionhead, you're so ... ribald."
• When the S.F. paper calls your book about a girl-crazy sailor the "gayest novel in years," you might have a marketing problem on your hands.
• Mitchell Hooks is a highly underrated coverartist. His stuff is generally sketchier and more whimsical than the work of the more famous Great Girl Artists, but I always find it very engaging. Love the rough black line work. Also, LOVE the redhead's outfit.

Best things about this back cover:

• On the cover, the girls thought Onionhead was in the Navy. Here, they learn he was in the Coast Guard.
• FOOD OR SEX? They're really pushing this appetite parallel a lot. Unless this book culminates in Onionhead eating large plates of pasta and various desserts off the naked bodies of gorgeous young ladies, I'm going to be very disappointed.
• Again: Ribald! For her pleasure.

Page 123~

Al began browsing among the supplies, getting oriented. He noticed a recipe for muffins on a bag of cornmeal, and got a brilliant idea. He had to learn how to cook, so he ought to practice, learn by experience, trial and error. He would make some goddam muffins.

I want an apron depicting the front cover art and the caption: "He would make some goddam muffins." I would wear it every day.

~RP

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Paperback 358: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter / Carson McCullers (Bantam A1091)

Paperback 358: Bantam A1091 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Author: Carson McCullers
Cover artist: Uncredited [faint signature on crease in bottom right corner looks like that of Mitchell Hooks]

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, that guy is selling it. Least appreciative audience Ever.
• I read this book twenty years ago and though I largely forget the plot I remember really liking it. I do, however, remember the first line, verbatim. "In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together." I think those are the mutes there: Tevye and the Undertaker.
• Little girl demonstrates that peculiar paperback phenomenon whereby people appear to be looking at things they could not possibly see from that angle—that man is both behind her *and* blocked by a man's belly.
• I like how the human beings are painted naturalistically but the surroundings are kind of surreal. I mean, look at that gray and white smear of a sidewalk. And that fire&brimstone sky.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Easy, girls, there's enough of me for both of you."
• LOVE her "Holy F*&^" expression.
• Not generally a fan of the multiple-scene cover—pick a scene and depict it, dammit, don't try to cram so much action into such a little space. Here, however, the paintings are discrete enough, and large enough, that there's not the usual feeling of chaos.
• No Pasadena Star-News blurbs here. All top tier publications.

Page 123~

"No. There was some definite thing you did that for. We been knowing each other a pretty long time, and I understand by now that you got a real reason for every single thing you ever do. Your mind runs by reasons instead of just wants. Now, you promised you'd tell me what it was, and I want to know."

~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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 279: The Angry Mountain / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1058)

Paperback 279: Bantam 1058 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Angry Mountain
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• He put his ear to the door. "Shhh. Be quiet, naked Sonia Braga. I think hear the mountain ... and it sounds angry."
• Sonia Braga: The Crappy Casting Couch Years
• Does anyone even know who Sonia Braga is any more? "Kiss of the Spider Woman?" Anyone?
• "A smashing story..." As in, "We smashed one of the louvered blind panels out of the window to enhance your lava-viewing pleasure."
• There are so many folds in that sheet. It's mesmerizing if you look at it for too long...

Best things about this back cover:

• I love the quaint explanation of why this paperback book exists. "See, we published a book in hardback, and it did really well, so we decided hey, we can probably sell enough in softcover to realize a robust profit, even with the smaller margins." The fifties were so earnest and friendly.
• I don't love the repro of the original cover. Book should be called "The Angry Hand."
• "Zina murmured sleepily and sat up, showing me her nakedness." Pardon me while I throw up in my mouth a little. I think you mean "I could see her boobs. Oh man, boobs. Awesome."
• Love love love the Orwellian announcement of the forthcoming Huxley novel. "Brave New World is coming! You will submit to its laws! Resistance is Futile!"

Page 123~

"Do you think I don't know what the man is? That last night in Milan—I lay in bed in the dark and felt his hands on my leg. I knew those hands. I'd known them [sic] if a thousand hands were touching my leg."

"A thousand!?" Seriously, Sonia Braga had to do some terrible shit to get her career underway.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. I need your help. Some entity calling itself "Book Blogger Appreciation Week" (BBAW) has notified me that my blog, this blog, has been nominated for one of its annual awards in the category of ... BEST WRITING. Really? Of all the categories (including Funniest Blog, hello) this is the one I'm nominated for? The Big One? Well, OK. Thank you. I'm flattered, even if my nomination is really just the voice of one crank crying in the wilderness (or my mom). I can tell you there is no way I have a chance of even being shortlisted. First, those book blogger ladies are mobbed up tight. They read and write like crazy and all seem to know each other (if the Twitter back-and-forths I see from time to time are any indication). Second, they actually read the books they talk about, whereas yours truly hasn't read a book in years; I can barely get through my Batman comics week to week. Third, my audience, while brilliant and loyal, is still relatively small. But in the interest of ... whaddya call it ... gratitude? Yeah, gratitude, as well as bloggerly community, I'm going to play ball. Here's what I have to do (and how you can help). The following is verbatim from the notification email:

In order to help our panels fairly evaluate your blog, we ask that you submit permalinks (direct links to individual blog posts) for 5 blog posts per category that you consider to be the best representation of your blog. [...] Of the 5 posts submitted please include a minimum of one book review/recommendation/or spotlight post.

So, please help me, if you would, by suggesting (in comments, or by email) which write-ups you think I should submit. I have no perspective. I think even my ugliest children are awesome.

Thank you.

~RP

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

Paperback 113: The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife / Erle Stanley Gardner (Cardinal C-283)

Paperback 113: Cardinal C-283 (3rd ptg, 1958)

Title: The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Truly incredible design. Most of these Cardinal reprints are dreadfully boring, but this one is gorgeous - subtle, yet eye-grabbing. I swear to you that until this very second, when I scanned the cover (and thus blew it up to an abnormally large size), I did not notice the silhouette of the man in the fedora inside those slashing black lines. Very nice effect.
• "Half-Wakened Wife" really really wants to be "Half-Naked Wife" every time I look at it.
• I know that when *I* am half-wakened, I can't help but reach blindly for my revolver. It's just normal human instinct.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Chiseler" is one of the all-time great words in the crime lexicon.
• "This is a Genuine Cardinal Edition" - I'm trying to imagine all the bootleg and rip-off versions out there: Oriole? Cardinale? Sorny?
• Gardner's signature remains certifiably insane.

Page 123~

Ellen Cushing once more raised her voice. "I guess you've got to come out, Mother."

~RP

Paperback 76: I Am Fifteen - And I Don't Want to Die / Christine Arnothy (Popular-Eagle Library EB95)

Paperback 76: Popular-Eagle Books EB95 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: I Am Fifteen - and I Don't Want to Die
Author: Christine Arnothy
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

YOURS FOR: $9


Best things about this cover:

• It's hard to make fun of a 15-year-old who does not want to die, particularly when the people who might kill her are Nazis.
• This book was apparently published in order to capitalize on the brief vogue in diaries written by young girls hiding from Nazis.
• She's pretty chic for a war victim.
• This cover is slightly boring (not nearly Hooks's best work) but I do love the barbed wire detail around her ankles, and the color of the sky.

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 33: Signet G2569

Paperback 33: Signet G2569 (5th ptg, 1964)

Title: The Body in the Bed
Author: Bill S. Ballinger
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

"I said 'Queen Size comforter,' you fool, not 'King!'"

Best things about this cover:

• False advertising - Technically she's by the bed, not in it.
• If the cover features a girl with a gun, I buy the book. Almost without exception. Hence my purchase of a 5th printing (!?).
• Whoever wrote the cover copy has a very tin ear: "When she was alive she was dangerous ... but when she was dead, she was dynamite!" - that's how a pro would have written it. This version clunks / sucks.
• "SEASON'S TASTIEST DISH" - Hey, S.F. Chronicle: what season!? Autumn? Easter? Hannukah? Could you not even afford to print the definite article?
  

"Did you think you could get away from me just by turning the book over?! Silly man..."

Best things about this back cover:

• In case you didn't get enough sickly aquatic-colored comforter on the front cover: reprise!
• "... favorite pipe and slippers"?? Somehow this image of domesticity doesn't quite seem to go with the idea of banging your secretary.
• "Barr Breed!" - Awesome. You couldn't invent a cheesier P.I. name if you tried. Go ahead, I dare you. The only thing better than that name is the use of "private eyes" as a verb!
• "... a disappearing lucky charm" - I wonder if it was the green clover or the blue diamond...

RP

Paperback 15: Gold Medal 605

Paperback 15: Gold Medal 605 (PBO, 1956)

Title: Dead - and Kicking
Author: Frank Castle
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $12

Best things about this cover:

• My eyes! If that skirt's stripes were any color other than gray, I think I'd be having seizures right about now.
• Gray-striped skirt over gray-striped skirt against scribbly ochre background and scribbly gray background. This is one of the most deliberately ugly covers ever (and Mitchell Hooks is a fabulous cover artist, so I have no idea what happened here)
• "Francy" appears to be having a stroke (her right hand!). Wait, which one's "Francy?" The big woman or the small, dead one? Are those supposed to be the same woman? I'd ask that guy in the middle there with the gun and the guilty expression, but he seems anxious to get somewhere.
• Hmm, I'm not familiar with that use of the verb "bloomed" ...
• Red heels. No victim's outfit is complete without them.

Best things about this back cover:

• Correct use of "whom" in penultimate paragraph
• "Desperately enough to comb California for her" - wow, that is desperate
• Apparently in the 50's, plastic surgery had not yet been done on anything but the nose; that, or her body was magically resistant to physical manipulation of any kind: "nothing on earth could alter a single curve of that wonderful body of her..." Really, not even, I don't know, a chainsaw? A year's supply of french fries? Nothing?
• Did that dude shoot himself? His gun is smoking, but he's lurching backward like he's been hit.
• Beware the giant floating head of Francy!

RP