Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Paperback 543: The Shame Sell / Alan Marshall (Ember Library 394)

Paperback 543: Ember Library 394 (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Shame Sell
Author: Alan Marshall (sometime pseudonym of Donald Westlake)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $30

EL394.ShameSell_0001
Best things about this cover:
  • "Gee, putting together this new life-model kit is a blast!"
  • "So, you're telling me the cup goes ... like this ... and it keeps those things on the front of your chest from bouncing so much? Wow."
  • Seriously, he's putting that bra *on* to that girl, and he's even doing *that* wrong.
  • "I call this painting 'Drunk Girl Airs Out Her Pits.'"
  • Actually, I would call this painting "How To Ruin a Perfectly Good Picture of a Naked Woman." 1. Add creepy man-child. 2. have her do something inexplicable with her arms while making stupid drunk-face. 3. Replace pubic area with scary, uniformly black patch. Boner averted!


EL394bc.ShameSell

Best things about this back cover:
  • "Who could believe the truth?" I'm guessing Not Me.
  • Ah, the ad game. Oh, so the guy on the cover must be Dan Drooper from AMC's "Sad Men." 
  • I hope the butterfly net is nonmetaphorical.

Page 123~

Jon sat back, rested his elbows on the arms of the swivel chair, tapped his fingers together, and eyed the ceiling. "C. F., the way I see it, it's time for you to escalate against Oona. The situation is peaking out, and so a certain accclimatizing seems to be in order."

Even the guy in the book replied, "A certain what?" Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go escalate against Oona ... *if* you know what I mean (do you? 'cause I don't)

~RP

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3 comments:

Keir said...

Could you have a book cover like that then? And what on earth has the 'description' on the back have to do with the cover?

Random White Guy said...

For the first time I feel sorry for the baby boomers if this was the kind of porn they were getting.

Deb said...

For some reason, the words on the back cover about "the streets that he used to rule" reminded me of the lines in Cold Play's "Viva La Vida":

Now in the mornings
I sleep alone.
Sweep the streets
That I used to own...