Thursday, January 10, 2013

Paperback 589: Summer Widow / Florence Stonebraker (Beacon B394)

Paperback 589: Beacon B394 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Summer Widow
Author: Florence Stonebraker
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $10

BeacB394

Best things about this cover: 
  • "First the pelicans, now this!? Damn you, oil spill!!!," raged Steve.
  • "Your abdomen, it's so hot ... like ... like warm asphalt ... seriously, what the f*&^ is this?"
  • The black Sharpie assault on this woman's torso may be the single lamest act of censorship on record.
  • Florence Stonebraker ... she sounds like a real ... stonebreaker.
  • Every girl's gotta have a pair of beach heels. Or just one beach heel, I guess.

BeacB394bc

Best things about this back cover:
  • Time On Her Hands / Men On Her Mind / Sand On Her Butt
  • Oh, "tucked." That says "*tucked* away at a summer resort ..." How disappointing.
  • "What followed was ironical and bitter" is a sentence you should work into every story you tell for the rest of your life. It's a lapel-grabber.

Page 123~
She tried to fight. But what was the use in trying to fight an avalanche of insensate lust?
The guitar moaned. 
She screamed ...
Never mind the seeming impossibility of "insensate lust," I can't help thinking about what this monstrous woman is doing to that poor, poor guitar.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

3 comments:

DemetriosX said...

So is the black smear part of the printed artwork or was it done by some puritanical book seller/owner? If it was done before printing, it's awfully clumsy. It even covers some of the guy's fingers.

Marla said...

There is no way that shoe fits on her foot.

Michael5000 said...

"Maggie became even easier. Thus did she revenge herself on her husband..." Somebody's having an evenness-of-tone problem here.