Title: Sex Life of a Cop
Author: Oscar Peck
Cover artist: Uncredited
Yours for: Not For Sale (I'm hoping to write about this book / publisher some day...)
Best things about this cover:
- Wow, that's some sex life. I'll just assume the cop is banging a hooker just off-screen, or in the very ample back seat.
- This cover is uninteresting, but the book and its history are fascinating. Well, the book is trashy and poorly written (from what I've looked at), but that didn't matter to the State of Michigan when they tried and convicted its publisher, Sanford Aday, for trafficking in obscenity. 25 year sentence, $25K fine. No idea what happened after that, but I really want to find out ... Aday's late-'50s / early '60s sleaze publishing empire (run, improbably, out of Fresno, CA, my home town) is endlessly fascinating to me. The books are almost uniformly terrible, sometimes comically so, but they are also endearing in their constant, often painfully earnest attempts to broaden the scope of public sexual discourse. Lots of books about "deviant" sexuality, incl. transvestism, homosexuality, almost all of which combine titillation with sympathetic portrayal. Promoting understanding and tolerance for non-traditional sexuality through the dissemination of ... trashy fiction? Yes. Brilliant.
Back cover just has a logo, so, straight to p. 123
Page 123~
He drove down the alley to Third Street, then turned west toward Main and he had a satisfied feeling of being lucky to get to teach the attractive girl reporter the ropes of police work. And "the ropes" was exactly what he'd like to teach her.
Ha ha, "the ropes," get it? Because ... because ... uh oh. Get Out Of The Car, Lady! (I won't tell you what actually happens—it doesn't involve ropes, but I really Really wish I hadn't just read it. [Shudder])
~RP
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4 comments:
I'm looking at the cop car's number plate and, okay, I get what a 69 is, but what's an 07 - something involving an orifice and an elbow? Maybe a knee?
For this book, this is a boring cover, but for something else it could be pretty good. Maybe a mystery or something by Carson McCullers or Eudora Welty.
I'm sorry but that is an AMAZING cover, for two reasons:
1) it's a beautiful, quiet, evocative painting, and
2) it's the earliest known depiction of that great British pastime, dogging.
I remembered reading about Aday last year so went and found this for you.
http://vintagesleazepaperbacks.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/sex-life-of-a-cop-by-oscar-peck-saber-books-1959-full-text/
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