Title: The Bitter Passion
Author: John W. Wadleigh
Cover artist: uncredited
Yours for: $12
Best things about this cover:
- "Do you like my left shoulder? Do you? You're not even looking at it? Look at it!"
- John W. Wadleigh won the award for Most Unintentionally Pornographic-Sounding Author Name of 1960
- "A native man" - no, don't tell me, "native" is plenty of information ...
- Did the NY Times really say that a book called "The Bitter Passion" was a "net of passions?" That's just sad.
Best things about this back cover:
- You too, Los Angeles Mirror-News? We get it. "Passions." What else you got?
- "There had been several men" - nice euphemism! Way to use the passive voice to skirt the issue of your promiscuity, honey.
- "A novel of two lonely women" - whoa ... another woman? What happened to the "native man?" And how "lonely" are the women? Your answer will go a long way to determining whether I crack this book or not.
Page 123~
-In time, in time, I said. Be patient or you'll ruin yourself. Later you will remember. My words will come back to you, years from now, and you will understand, so trust me, yes?
-Yes, he said.
Without understanding any of it.
Silly non-English-speaking native. You'll never understand the eloquence and wisdom of ... whoever this chick is.
~RP
P.S. Thanks to Brian Cassidy for a very nice write-up of both "Pop Sensation" and "Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword" in his "Fine Books & Collections" blog.
