Paperback 1094: Perma Books M-4042 (1st ptg, 1956)
Title: Mardios Beach
Author: Oakley Hall
Cover artist: Tom Dunn
Condition: 8-9/10 (mild dings to the corners, else perfect)
Value: $15-20
- "Wilma!"
- "Stella!"
- He was a heel and worshiped only one god—SUSPENDERS!
- William Holden just woke up and wants to know where his goddamn shirt is!
- The lady looks sad and frightened, but actually she's just petting and gently whispering to a small mouse on her arm named Marvin. "I don't know why the mean man is yelling, Marvin. Maybe he's rehearsing a play. You want some cheese?"
- His left hand is so dramatic, perhaps because his right fingers are caught in the hinges of the door?
Best things about this back cover:
- "Frank" alert! "Frank" alert. We have "Frank," I repeat, we have "Frank"! (And "Brutally frank" at that—that's the best kind of frank!)
- Now I'm wondering how louses (lice?) are typically made.
- From what I gather from this back-cover description, this is a novel about a guy who just punches people in the groin over and over. It's a hard life, but if you wanna be a louse, you gotta put in the work.
Page 123~
"All right. Quick! What's a woman's function?"
"Give up? The answer is: to Find My Damn Shirt! These suspenders are startin' to itch! Now open this door right now. Hey, is Marvin in there? You and Marvin better not be talkin' about me again ..."
~RP
2 comments:
On the whole this is a great cover. Tension, fear, anger, it's got it all. But that door bugs me. It doesn't make a lot of sense architecturally. Assuming that's a double bed, the door is way off center to the room. And why would you cram the bed into the corner behind the door.
He also seems to be to the hinge-side of the door. If you're talking to someone behind a closed door, the natural position would be at the middle of the door. Maybe his fingers really are caught in there.
Nice to see the return of "frank." The whole back cover copy is so delightfully, chewily, crunchily 50s. Chef's kiss.
I was trying to figure out the Perma Books logo. My first thought was "pole dancer," but then I realized it's a stylized anchor and cable.
Readers seeking a brutally frank experience will be disappointed.
https://readingcalifornia.typepad.com/reading_california_fictio/2008/10/mardios-beach.html
"... As an example of social realism from the 1950s, Mardios Beach is unsurpassed in California fiction. Readers seeking an intense literary experience will not be disappointed.
... successful used car dealer Bill Gregory, a self-made man in his early forties who is profoundly angry at those who have not struggled diligently to get ahead; his unhappy and fearful wife, Bea, a decade younger, who has given up trying to meet his expectations as a lover, homemaker and mother"
So Bea is the "wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie."
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