Thursday, November 25, 2010

Paperback 372: Male Virgin / Jack Woodford & John B. Thompson (Uni Books 67)

Paperback 372: Uni Books 67 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Male Virgin
Author: Jack Woodford & John B. Thompson
Cover artist: Bernard Safran

Yours for: $14

UNI67.MaleVirgin

Best things about this cover:
  • "Frank!"
  • Who the hell is Norman Anthony and does he think Dr. Kinsey was a softcore novelist?
  • I'd like this cover a hell of a lot better without that white strip across the bottom.
  • Nothing but nothing about this cover says "Male Virgin." It doesn't say "Male." and it sure doesn't say "Virgin."
  • Bernard Safran is an accomplished cover artist. Somehow surprised to see his work on a book from a publisher as marginal as this one.

UNI67bc.MaleVirgin

Best things about this back cover:
  • But... "socks" is already plural for "socks."
  • Shouldn't the ellipsis be on the *other* side of "Until"?
  • "With the accent on the sap"—that's actually pretty sweet.
  • "MALE VIRGIN is laid in New Orleans..." — well, thanks for giving away the ending.

Page 123~

"In the conventional marriage, there is a lot of mumbo-jumbo ritual which does not in itself constitute a glue binding the principals together. Instead, it provides them both with ammunition which on innumerable occasions has been hurled back and forth in bitterness and recrimination."

This page is actually painfully sincere garbage about what marriage really ought to be about. It's practically the last page of the book. Also, this book has many passages which have been painstakingly underlined, as if someone was actually *studying* it for a test, or wisdom, or something equally improbable / unfathomable.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

3 comments:

Jackie said...

A couple more great things about the cover:

The clawlike hand and wrist jutting awkwardly from her head.

Um, no wonder "he" is a virgin. "He" seems to be just an overstuffed chair dressed in a shirt and tie.

Deb said...

Nothing says you've arrived more than having Norman Anthony refer to you as "the poor man's" something or other.

Frank said...

Can we talk about the ghost of that horrific woman lurking on the back cover? Maybe he's a virgin because she haunts him every time he tries to get some.