Thursday, July 28, 2011

Paperback 443: The Sixth Man / Jess Stearn (MacFadden Books 60-106)

Paperback 443: MacFadden Books 60-106 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Sixth Man
Author: Jess Stearn
Cover artist: N/A

Yours for: $10

SixthMan.Kinsey

Best things about this cover:
  • I know the cover wants to be ominous, with the suggestion that "you can't tell them apart" and "they're hiding among you," but the image just looks too much like the spinning wheel on a game show for me to be too "frightened": "Congratulations, you landed on Fabulous!" (love that the one-in-six is hot pink)
  • Monotonous corporate drones ... or sophisticated men dancing in a Busby Berkeley / Ethel Merman movie? I can't decide.
  • So *this* is what the NBA's "Sixth Man" award is all about ...

SixthManbc.Kinsey

Best things about this back cover:
  • "That's right, we gays have taken over, and we've hung Straighty up by his ankles. Let that be a warning to you. You better queer it up right now, see, or it's curtains for you!"
  • I'm guessing this cover is a lot more scarifying than the actual book.
  • The first two sentences here (particularly the second one) are pointless. "He is a chronicler of events..." Congratulations. I myself am an "eater of Doritos."

Page 123~

George looked like anything but the popular conception of a homosexual. He cut a manly figure, tall, strongly built, and was neatly but plainly dressed. And while he drank and talked fast, gesticulating a lot, so do hundreds of people I know on Madison Avenue who aren't queer.

Interesting, but you might want to rethink your certainty about those Madison Avenue people.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

8 comments:

andys said...

Am I to guess this is the treatment "bible" for Marcus Bachmann's clinic? Thank you! I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Frank said...

Yes, we gays are very, very frightening. Booga-booga!

Random White Guy said...

So why did he bother to talk to lesbians if he's so into finding gay men?

Anonymous said...

"So why did he bother to talk to lesbians if he's so into finding gay men?"

Who needs a reason?

Doug Brunell said...

I kind of feel bad for the guy on the cover.

borky said...

Cover:

"One of the most frightening surveys conducted since the Kinsey books".

In other words, you read this book and you're spinning the dice, because by the time you've finished it there's a one in six chance you'll have found out you yourself're a rider of the Lavender Bus - and you never even suspected.

Back:

"Someday we'll outnumber you and you'll be the abnormal ones, and we'll be the normal..."

The gospel according to the paedophiles, who watch how normalised homosexuality's become, especially on TV, making them really believe some day we'll be watching comedy shows like Two Men and a Bunch of Kids where someone'll say of the cute'n'cuddly paedophile character, "Oh, my god, you'll never guess what he's done now - raped a classroom of six year olds and sodomised a baby on a bus!" and after everyone's stopped wetting themselves with laughter, another character'll say, "That's Paedo for you!" and we'll all weep tears of joy how rich life when we're able to watch such laugh a minute antics on our TV week in, week out.

Larry said...

So who is the target readers for all of these Homosexuals Amongst Us books? The Lesbo novels are clearly targeted to straight males, but who, in the 50s would want to read this stuff?

Stoutcat said...

You better queer it up right now, see, or it's curtains for you!...
...Lacy, gently wafting curtains...