Paperback 1093: Black Friday / David Goodis (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 1093: Black Lizard (unnumbered) (1st ptg, 1987)

Title: Black Friday

Author: David Goodis

Cover artist: Kirwan

Condition: 9 or 10/10 (they don't come any better—looks brand new)

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• Well, sure, if you live in the sewer, every Friday is Black Friday
• A jug of wine, a single boot, a weird ... I'm gonna say 'coin purse' ... and thou ...
• It looks like a hand gun fossilized inside a coin purse, or handbag. Maybe if we could get a little more light in here...
• I love that Kirwan works his name into the objects in his paintings. No way you're gonna cheat him out of an artist credit! (check the neck on the bottle)
• I adore these late-80s, pre-Vintage takeover Black Lizards. They go through a white-spine and then a later black-&-gray spine incarnation. This one is of the white-spine variety:

• I'm so mad at the lack of complete vintage paperback checklists online. My kingdom for a one-stop shop featuring numbered lists of every paperback by ever imprint, including reprint houses like Black Lizard. Sigh. Everything out there is incomplete and/or hard to navigate—though I do like BookScans pretty well

Best things about this back cover: 

• Woof. Pretty bland back here.
• According to backyardchickens.com, pickled eggs are "100% absolutely horrible frozen." In case that Mike Wallington blurb was giving you any ideas.
• Ah, good, they gave Kirwan his artist credit after all. Nice.

Page 123~

"There's the other dog. Over there, Charley. You looking?"

"No," Charley said. "You look."

"Aw, don't, Charley. Don't be that way."

"What way?" Charley asked mildly. "I'm just telling you to look, that's all. I want you to have a good look."

"Jesus," Rizzio said. And then he sobbed it. "Oh Jesus—"

The dog is a Doberman and the Doberman ... seems to have had a mild disagreement with Charley and Rizzio's partner, Mattone. The phrase "there was little of his throat remaining" makes an appearance. I'm usually a "root-for-the-dog" kind of person, and since these guys shot a dog a few pages back, I don't feel so bad for Mattone, frankly.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and BlueSky]

Paperback 591: Cropper's Cabin / Jim Thompson (Black Lizard nn)

Paperback 591: Black Lizard nn (1st ptg, 1987)

Title: Cropper's Cabin
Author: Jim Thompson
Cover artist: Kirwan

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "Look ma, Sissy done given birth to a gun!"
• I love these '80s Black Lizards. They have their own unique look, a kind of '80s/'50s hybrid, rather than just looking like imitations / parodies of the vintage style. Lurid, but stylized.
• Wow, someone's been practicing his action-hand drawing.
• That lady's hair and dress are both aptly nightmarish.
• I like when artists signatures are visible, and especially when they are worked into the art itself (Robert Schulz did this quite a bit)

Best things about this back cover:

• Sadism, incest, and castration are (for better or worse) three of the most common themes in Thompson's writing.
• Don't like the design here so much: too texty, and it's all a little too left-justified.
• Black Lizard (post-Vintage buyout) was my entree into the world of hardboiled crime fiction. Someday I'll tell you the story of the bookstore point-of-purchase display that changed my life (or maybe I've already told that story—blog long enough, and you forget what you have and haven't told...)

Page 123~

I stopped and whuffed my nose out good and dug out my eyes, and it helped a lot. And my hands didn't slip any more. Because ...

Now, this is more like it, I thought. Why didn't I think of this ...

Because I wasn't holding on to anything.

Despite what it apparently means, 'whuffed' is my new favorite word.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 166: Wild Wives / Charles Willeford (RE/Search, unnumbered)

Paperback 166: RE/Search nn (unknown ptg, 1987)

Title: Wild Wives
Author: Charles Willeford
Cover artist: Terri Groat-Ellner

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• "Go on, big boy. Do your worst! I ain't ascared of your gun."
• Something about her pose makes her look not sexy but lopsided. Like her torso is the upper layer of a cake that is shifting.
• I don't know what you call this style of dress, but it is hot. Hott.
• I need a word for "gun/crotch" interaction. Wait. I think I just coined it.
• It's weird / disturbing the lengths to which the gun/phallus connection can be taken in cover art

This is a late 80s reprint of a 1956 paperback ("Wild Wives" was first published as a special bonus story within the covers of another Willeford novel, "High Priest of California").


Charles Willeford is a Noir Fiction god. Coincidentally, I just finished teaching his "Pick-Up" in my crime fiction class (seriously, just finished ... yesterday). Smart, beautifully (clearly) written, often funny, and, in parts, genuinely shocking. I have a strong hankering now to read as much of his stuff as I can.
This reprint is surprisingly rare, hence the price. Willeford is pretty collectible in any form (except, perhaps, the Library of America version I used in my class - that volume ("Noir Fiction of the 1950s") is gold: Highsmith, Thompson, Himes, Goodis, and Willeford. Here's a review by Terry Teachout (another weird coincidence - I just mentioned Teachout, specifically his bio of Mencken, in my last post for this blog)


Best things about this back cover:

• Blurbs from actual people / media outlets you might have heard of
• What is with the insane, jagged, fire-licking design?
• This book is dated 1987 ... and yet we are told that Willeford died in 1988 ... That's foresight.

Page 23~

I gathered the heavy tweed of her skirt in my hands, and lifted. The heat of her body reached out for my hands. The flesh of her was firm and yet oddly relaxed.

The rest of the quote you can see in bold on the back cover of the book (!).

~RP