Paperback 1121: Perma Books M-4257 (1st ptg., 1962)
Title: A Place to Meet
Author: Mary Orr
Cover artist: Barye Phillips
Condition: 7/10
Value: $5-8
[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]
- Excellent title design motif. Really evokes an affair by evoking a hotel room of a bygone era (i.e. before key cards). But if I were Mary Orr, I'd be mad that they did not have a similarly eye-popping design for My Damned Name. I keep looking at this cover like [squinting] "who the hell wrote this?" They really bury her name in an avalanche of white text.
- Barye Phillips has not generally been among my favorite cover artists (there's something slightly sloppy / sketchy / incomplete / messy about his work, esp. for Gold Medal), but I kinda like this one. Their embrace—her ecstasy in particular—is really ... radiating. "When they came together ... it was nuclear!" (it's 1962, after all, so I thought a little Cuban Missile Crisis energy was in order)
- I did not know All About Eve was based on a book. Once again, the popularizers and adapters get the title right. Last time (Paperback 1120), it was the paperback changing the hardcover original title from The Long Chance to Long Shot (so much better), and here we see the movie-makers made the wise decision to ditch The Wisdom of Eve in favor of the much snappier title. Would that movie be the classic it is if it were titled The Wisdom of Eve. Honestly, I doubt it.
Best things about this back cover:
- Wow, the key is much more menacing back here. Bigger, more skull-like, and with prominent jagged teeth. Perhaps this is a sign that the affair between ... what's her name and ... Miguel? Really? ... anyway, perhaps the key is a sign that the affair spells Danger!
- I like how she's like a casting agent: "I've got this role that you might be perfect for..."
- Miguel: Filler of Voids
- It's kind of funny to describe your prospective affair as "The One." Like, wasn't your husband supposed to be "The One?"
Page 123~
And then, like a crash in the dark, the volcano of discontent had suddenly erupted the way it always had in past Vanzadorian history.
Now is the volcano of our discontent made glorious crashing by this son of ... Vanzador? That's your fictional Latin American country, Vanzador? I guess if they only two words you can think of are "Venezuela" and "matador," then sure, Vanzador. Anyway, I now that there is an actual place called Vanadzor—not a country in Latin America, but a city in Armenia. Don't say this blog never taught you anything.
~RP
1 comment:
Way too much text on the front cover. Part of the problem, I guess, is that, great as that key fob is, it doesn't leave much room for anything else.
Yeah, Miguel. The Latin lover was a huge trope in the 50s and 60s, maybe a little earlier. Brown enough to be exotic, just white enough to be safe.
Your thoughts on Barye Phillips have finally crystalized why I don't like the work of John Berkey. He's got that same sketchy/incomplete thing, just with spaceships instead of people.
Post a Comment