Sunday, November 20, 2011

Paperback 479: The Torrid Teens / Orrie Hitt (Beacon B294)

Paperback 479: Beacon B294 (PBO, 1960)

Title: The Torrid Teens
Author: Orrie Hitt
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $50


TorridTeens.JD

Best things about this cover:
  • Home. Run.
  • Too many great things to list. The title! The garters! The menacing shadow men! I mean, I realize that this painting depicts what appears to be a sexual assault in progress, and obviously sexual assault is bad, but as sensational covers go, this one is gold. 
  • This book should be called "Everyone's Hands Were Awesome." A triad of terrifically expressive hands.
  • "You told ma you'd be home for dinner at 6, and as you can clearly see from my visible watch face, it's almost 6:30. Why must you succumb to vileness and the twisted desire to stay out past dinner time?"


TorridTeensBC.JD

Best things about this back cover: 
  • One of the ugliest line drawings I've ever seen on a paperback cover. Reeks of Dickensian squalor. 
  • I think he's trying to do this trick where he lights a match using only his teeth and her breast.
  • Why does honesty always have to be so brutal? What did we ever do to honesty?

Page 123~

"The kids in the gang were pretty good to you," he said. "They could have told the cops you were with them on the rumble, but they didn't. That could have hurt you a lot and I don't think it would have made your mother very happy."

Little did he know that her mother was actually a long-time subscriber to "Rumble Fancier" magazine.

~RP

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Ava Flynn" and "Hope Gardner"? I wonder if either is the love child of Ava Gardner and Errol Flynn, or perhaps Bob Hope? It probably happened after a hard night of partying at the Mocambo.

Ms Avery said...

Trollops! There's a word we don't hear much any more.

And what, exactly, is socialized sex?

DemetriosX said...

Awesome cover, but the title sounds like a band name. Maybe post-punk covers of payola era hits.

Deb said...

Ms. Avery beat me to it, but "trollop" is so out of place on that back cover, the blurb writer must have had his thesaurus open while he typed: "Hmmmm, let's see, what's another word for slut? Whore, doxy, jade...oh, here's a good one--trollop!"

Onan said...

@Ms Avery - I don't know, but I am an expert on "unsocialized sex".

J F Norris said...

It's 6:30 if you wear your watch upside down! It's really either 11:55 or 11:00. I can't tell which hand is supposed to be the minute hand. They both look to be the same length to my tired middle-aged eyes.

infoqueen said...

@Avery: I wonder if it's like socialized medicine: everybody gets some, whether they can afford it or not.