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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Paperback 1098: Madball / Fredric Brown (Dell First Edition 2E)

 Paperback 1098: Dell First Edition 2E (PBO, 1953)

Title: Madball

Author: Fredric Brown

Cover artist: Griffith Foxley

Condition: 6-7/10

Value: $25

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• If I were a lady I would buy these pajamas (both colors) and sleep in them every night. Not sure how I feel about the capes, but the pajamas are hot.
• Most of the stuff I was eyeballing at The Book Den was a little on the pricy side (for me—I tend to be cheap and will only pay collector prices if the book is Really desirable and/or the condition is very good). But this book ... I feel lucky to have found a copy in the wild at all. I mean, you can order it on abebooks or whatever, but where's the fun in that? And I still got it for less than it's probably worth. But beyond the whole question of "Value" there's the book, a beautiful early Dell First Edition by a masterful, versatile, often hilarious writer. The book's a bit worn, but it's tight and complete. Got that slightly soft, highly read feel. I love a well read paperback. A really broken-in paperback. This book just screams Everything Good About the Midcentury Paperback. The dings and and creases give it character. In short, I'm very happy with this purchase. Very.
• Griffith Foxley's covers are always so ... creamy. Just a great painter of people. The girls look great, but I'm especially fond of the dopey-looking guy in the hat just slack-jawed gawking at the girls, as well as the square-jawed huckster in the boater and bow tie, carnival-barking into the mic with his whole damn body.
• "They're all alive inside!" is so enigmatic! I mean, are these girls robots? Or had there been rumors going around that everyone who went into the tent earlier had been murdered? "Those guys are still alive, fellas! That screaming you heard ... a chicken, I think. Anyway, step right up!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Copy writer is on point today! Working that alliteration like his job depended on it. "The pitchmen and the pickled punks, the cotton candy and the kewpie dolls ... all-night alibis!"
• Well that is *one* way to pluralize "carny."
• "Can I take you home? Where do you live?" "You know Frenzy?" "Sure." "Well it's close to the edge of there." "How close?" "Too close." "Hmm. You know, I think the buses are still running. Or ... can I call you a cab?"

Page 123~

He'd pushed the brakeman off the moving train in sudden anger, the same blind anger that had made him strike Sammy last night. And he hadn't really meant to kill the lush he rolled, just to make him unconscious would've been enough. But they were murders just the same. They'd have fried him for either one.

That's the problem with lushes. So fragile. The law should really take that into consideration, you know? But carceral state's gonna carceral state, amirite? Yeah I'm right. Hey, pass me the Madball, I'm gonna see if it'll tell me where to eat tonight ...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and BlueSky]