Paperback 1105: Suburban High School / George Savage (Beacon B494F)

 Paperback 1105: Beacon B494F (PBO, 1962)

Title: Suburban High School

Author: George Savage

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $12-15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA (2024)]

Best things about this cover: 

• Suburban kink is a sizable sleaze paperback niche. Kinsey got everyone interested in the actual sex practices of ordinary people, and nothing shouts "ordinary" quite so strongly as the suburbs. Writers had fun imagining that "upstanding citizens," cultural conformists, and scolding moralists were actually horny hypocrites. And their kids, too!
• Her hair is doing very weird and unnatural things. Either that or she fell on a squirrel.
• "Oh Steve, this dead squirrel makes a terrible pillow. I feel sick. Rub my tummy."
• Seems like a Scandal, Sin and Sex curriculum would involve a lot of redundancy. I'd prefer some outdoor activities and maybe even some philosophy: Sin, Sun and Sartre! (if that's not the tagline of some philosophy conference somewhere, then why even be a philosopher?)
• Aside from her bralessness and semi-brazen side-boob, this cover is pretty tame. At first I thought there was some kind of bacchanalia going on in the background, but they're just dancing and roasting marshmallows, I think.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Does this even qualify as "advice?" And is that someone's idea of a "faculty" pun? 
• Hey, Frank Miller is in this? Exciting to get insight into his life pre-Dark Knight Returns.
• "A new teaching position"—is that also a pun!? 
• "Using women as weapons"—so, like battering rams?
• OK, I'm just gonna assume the whole last paragraph is meant to be SHOUTED.
• There is a catastrophic em dash failure in the last line here. This is the kind of "Scandal" that would bother me as a parent. "Yeah, yeah, the teens are having sex, whatever. Let's talk punctuation."

Page 123~

"Wait," I said. "Let me take off your panties."

I made it a ritual. I made taking her panties off a pagan rite that we would always practice. I drew them down slowly, inch by inch, over her hot buttocks."

Sorry, I wanted to go on, but I can't stop laughing at "hot buttocks." It's like if Hot Pockets were shaped like a butt. "Hot Buttocks!"

~RP

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Paperback 1104: The Storm and the Silence / David Walker (Lion Library LL33)

 Paperback 1104: Lion Library LL33 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Storm and the Silence

Author: David Walker

Cover artist: George Erickson

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm guessing she's the storm and he's the silence. Just a hunch.
• TFW your girlfriend catches you playing with your ...  hey, what the hell is that anyway? A doll? A flash? A candlestick? A cakepop?
• This guy has too much neck. Just ... too much square footage on this cover is given over to his beeftacular neck. Not at all proportional to his torso. Deeply disturbing. But not as disturbing as ...
• Her hand! What horrid accident befell her!? Is she giving him some weird sign with her right hand, or did she lose her index and middle fingers in a cheese slicer accident? The pinky is bent at a preposterous, unnatural angle. The thumb is so thin it barely counts as a digit. Just a complete nightmare, that hand.
• Hey, maybe he's holding (fondling) the case she keeps her fingers in?

Best things about this back cover: 

• Love it when women cackle while two hapless saps beat the shit out of each other. It's weirdly a thing in paperback cover art, women who get turned on by or are otherwise entertained by violence. Actually, she less amused than bored. "Ugh, this again. I'm just gonna sit here with my beaker of whiskey until you boys are through,"
• Captain Beefneck is pursued by zombie sheriff. That's a plot line I could get into.
• If I were Tam Diamond, the only secret I'd want to keep is that my momma named me after a Scottish hat

Page 123~

"Mine's a port," Maggie said at once. She was a hard-necked one. She'd need to be, always being the goose-gog, always being a drag on other folks.

The existence of goose-gog implies the existence of goose-magog. 

("goosegog" is the acid and prickly fruit of a shrub, fyi)

~RP

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Paperback 1103: I Take This Woman / Georges Simenon (Signet 1034)

 Paperback 1103: Signet 1034 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: I Take This Woman

Author: Georges Simenon

Cover artist: Uncredited [Avati?]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• "... and I take this man [whispers] to hell ..."
• Not everyone's cut out to join the new Coffee Generation. Sadly, there is the occasional casualty.
• This vacant-eyed lady is exquisite. From the light on her hair to that amazing dress with its snazzy shoulder bows, to the bangle on her wrist to her prayer-like hands to the blue arsenic paper she's squeezing in barely suppressed mariticidal glee. Particularly amazing when juxtaposed with the dramatic cascade of falling humanity on the left. Her stillness against their movement, her nearness against their farness, bigness against smallness. Lots happening in such a little space.
  
• I aspire to read more Simenon, particularly non-Maigret Simenon. But most of what I own is vintage and I don't want to hurt it :(

Best things about this back cover: 

• Simenon would ultimately write over 400 novels. This is one of his romans durs ("hard novels"). If you look up "roman dur," it seems that the term applies only to Simenon. He seems to have coined it to refer to his non-Maigret novels that explored "aberrant behavior and psychological torment" without the generic constraints of the roman policier.
• "To understand people is to love them"—such a weird motto, so weirdly presented. "It expresses my heart, so it must be ... in handwritten script. No, it must! I insist! Put a typewritten translation underneath if you must, but the people must see my handwriting to understand my sincerity. Now leave me alone while I smoke my pipe and stare out the window."
• The original title of this book was La verité sur Bébé Donge (The Trial of Bébé Donge). I guess Bébé Donge was just too much ... name for an American audience. As with much French cheese, American palates were simply not ready for Bébé Donge (which kind of sounds like a cheese, come to think of it: "The brie is OK, but have you tried the Bébé Donge!? Magnifique!")

Page 123~

    "Question: Did he refuse to let you have what you needed? Was he strict with you? Did he scold you? Did he beat you? Was he jealous, suspicious?

    "Answer: He never bothered his head about me."

~RP

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Paperback 1102: Her Cheating Heart / Lloyd Kevin (Monarch Books 286)

Paperback 1102: Monarch 286 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Her Cheating Heart

Author: Lloyd Kevin

Cover artist: Tom Miller

Condition: 7/10

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• "C'mon, Joy, we've been over this—quit flashing the neighbors and make me some eggs or something, jeez..."
• Ah yes, her heart. Her cheating heart. This is an incredible painting of her heart. I could look at her heart all day.
• This is actually a great cover—very hard to draw this specific action (woman pulling nightgown over her head) in a way that looks natural, where everything stays proportionate and relative sexiness is maintained.
• Love the perpendicular contrast here: her action to his inaction, her ardor to his ennui. Sadly, those curtains are really killing the vibe. I can practically feel their rough, thick fabric and smell their cigarette mustiness. Between the curtains, the walls, the bedding, and his trousers/pajamas, I feel like I'm drowning in shades of drab. She looks great, the trailer park looks great, everything else looks like despair.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Oh cool, it's a Choose Your Own Adventure book!
• Trigg Melnor ... I'm dying. I can't breathe. Trigg... Melnor... Trigg Melnor, ladies and gentlemen. Trigg fucking Melnor. A man's man's man's man's name if there ever was one. What would I do? No, what would Trigg Melnor do? That is the question. That is the only question I will entertain in my life from now on. WWTMD, baby!
• I sorta like this red silhouette, although it takes her from sexy dame to blobby abstraction. Pretty recognizable human silhouette from the waistline down, but above that ... I dunno. Kinda looks like some form of animal life is getting involved. Like there's a koala maybe climbing up the right side, and a small dog (in profile) keeping lookout on the left. 

Page 123~

    Trigg tried a new approach. "Lu's old Chevvy—was it here last night?"

    The woman looked puzzled. "Ol shevi?"

    "Lu's car." He made steering-wheel motions.

Make steering-wheel motions—that's what Trigg Melnor did. And he was darned good at it, too.

~RP

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Paperback 1101: Slipping Beauty / Jerome Weidman (Avon 322)

 Paperback 1101: Avon 322 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Slipping Beauty

Author: Jerome Weidman

Cover artist: [Ray Johnson]

Condition: 8/10 (cover kind of warps away from the pages at the corners a bit, but otherwise square and bright)

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• When you're in the theater with your children and suddenly realize you've misread the marquee... "Mommy, that lady's not sleeping ... mommy ... can I get a cigarette holder?"
• This is really first-rate girl art. I love this dame: sexy, bored, comfortable in her sexy boredness. He does a good job with her body & profile but he does an even better job with her whole Attitude. High-end hardboiled.
• I like the palette on this cover, too. Real cool. The icy blue is unusual, and complements the pinkish lingerie and flesh tones really well.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Loooooove a good author photo, and this one is good. Gotta be smoking, of course, but I love how this is less author photo and more cover adornment. He's *this* close to looking like a logo.
• LOL those *eternal* ellipses in the New York Times quotation. Like the reviewer is thinking of something diplomatic to say and is like "... uh ... meaty? ..."
• "Cataloguer of heels"—if I were Weidman, I'd put that on my business card *immediately*

Page 123~ (from "Everybody Wants to Be a Lady")

Well, my husband Mac, he's the nicest fellah you ever wanna meet and all that, but when it comes to things like this, God bless him, if you don't put the words in his mouth, he don't know what to say.

Ah, to live in a time when people said "fellah" and spelled it with an "h." Glory days. 

~RP

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Paperback 1100: The Devil Wears Wings / Harry Whittington (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 1100: Black Lizard [unnumbered] (1988)

Title: The Devil Wears Wings

Author: Harry Whittington

Cover artist: Kirwan

Condition: 7/10

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm always impressed by artists who can draw hands but this is maybe too much hand. Creepy levels of hand. Like the digits are five different personalities operating independently of one another, just flying their own freak flags...
• I guess the hand has smashed through ... a bank ... window? And that's where the bank keeps the cash? Not sure that's where I'd keep the cash, but what do I know?
• That ring is insane. If you've got a ring like that, it better give you superpowers or some shit, because otherwise, tacky.
• Harry Whittington rules. Totally reliable read. Never bad, sometimes great, paperback-pulp legend. Never read this one. Got this copy so cheap, and it's already so broken in, that I might just move this one to the top of the "To Be Read" pile...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Of all the blurby adjectives, "effective" has to be the least ... effective. Effective at what? Exciting me? Putting me to sleep? Give me something more.
• Love the name "Buz"—just gonna presume it's pronounced "booze"
• BANK CAPER! Yes, please, thank you. This is definitely going to the top of the pile

Page 123~

    She stared at me as if trying to see inside me. I felt my face going white and bloodless. All my blood seemed to be congealing in the pit of my stomach. 

    "Buz—you—didn't do it?"

Pretty sure Buz did it. Just a hunch.

~RP

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Paperback 1099: Savage Night / Jim Thompson (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

 Paperback 1099: Black Lizard [unnumbered] (1st ptg, 1985)

Title: Savage Night

Author: Jim Thompson

Cover artist: Kirwan

Condition: 8/10

Value: $15

[Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY (July 2024)]

Best things about this cover: 

• It's not a great cover, and I paid too much (by my cheap standards), but I can't help it, I gotta have these early (pre-Vintage takeover) Black Lizards. They feel like an origin story—my hardboiled origin story, the origin of the Hardboiled Revival. And Jim Thompson was definitely my gateway hardboiled author. I don't think I've read this one, though.
• This looks like the poster for a bad late-'80s straight-to-VHS erotic thriller
• That bullet looks like lipstick. Is it lipstick? Roll-on deodorant? It's giving bullet, but out of context and with no other object for scale, it just looks weird.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Bah, buncha quotes. Treating this book like it's legitimate literature, there's your first mistake. I don't need high-minded blurbs, I need lurid, turgid cover copy, and possibly more bad art.
• No idea what Cassill means here. Maybe he's talking about subject matter. I know he's not talking about quality. Or better not be.
• Too many ellipses in that Village Voice review. Suspicious, especially since it's merely descriptive and not particularly evaluative. Makes you wonder what they left out.

Page 123~

    I winked and jerked my head over my shoulder. "Just borrowed a drink of your whiskey, Mrs. Winroy. Had a sudden attack of stomach sickness."

    "It's perfectly all right, Carl." She gave me back the wink. "Sick at your stomach, huh? Well, that's what you get for eating with cops."

~RP

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