Paperback 1025: Hot Harem / Jill Carr (Saber Books SA-107)

Paperback 1025: Saber Books SA-107 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Hot Harem
Author: Jill Carr
Cover artist: [Bill Edwards?] [uncredited]

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The coffee lady's mockumentary fourth-wall break is amazing
• "... whether tis nobler to make a choice for the bedroom or to eat ... something something outrageous fortune..."
• It's like the top half of blondie's body doesn't know what the bottom half's doing or vice versa
• You can almost hear cereal dude going "uhhhhhhhh...."
• Even the bacon is like "this is ridiculous, we're outta here!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Girl [space] friend. Interesting.
• LOL they can't even keep the spelling of Ann(e)'s name straight for one paragraph
• Wait, if Ann(e) is "somewhere between first and second choice" (?) ... well a. How many choices are involved? And b. Where does the horse fit into all of this?

Page 123~

I'm a Lesbian, she thought, amazed, but not horrified, yet not quite believing what she had to believe. Then she modified her own ... would you call it an accusation? And the brand burned more lightly; it didn't have to burn as deep. I'm heterosexual, Anne decided, and so is Jeanne.

Well, there's a lot to unpack here, but kudos to the writer for breaking out All The Punctuation Marks to heighten the tension. Ellipsis! Question mark! When I hit that semicolon, I was like "damn ... this is art."

~RP

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Paperback 689: The Left Hand of Satan / Mark Lucas (Saber Books SA-88)

Paperback 689: Saber Books SA-88 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Left Hand of Satan
Author: Mark Lucas
Cover artist: Uncredited (he did a *lot* of late Sabers...) [Bill Edwards]

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• The only thing that explains the hilariously amateurish quality of this painting, with its complete disdain for perspective (how tall *is* that man?!), is that it was painted by the left hand of Satan, and Satan is right-handed.
• Don't look too long at that headboard—it will confuse you and while you are thus addled Satan will steal your soul (presumably with his left hand).
• Nick is not a plausible mate for anyone, let alone either of those ladies. 
• "I finished painting your hallway ultra-bright yellow, ma'am, I just ... oh, excuse me, ma'am, I didn't know you had company. I'll go clean your gutters now. OK? OK." [backs out slowly].
• This is post-Sanford Aday Saber. Instead of interesting, politically-minded, sexually-provocative sleaze, we now just get sleaze for sleaze's sake, i.e. dull porn. Seriously, his publishing empire went Hilariously downhill after his obscenity conviction. 

Best things about this back cover:

• "Ordained minister"—so you know this shit is going to be Filthy.
• How is anyone "born with unconventional standards"? Predilections, sure, I guess, but "standards?" Those can't be inborn. Those are culturally determined. This has been "Overthinking It," with Rex Parker. See you next week.
• "The school of Lesbians and male homosexual students is growing"—Class Sizes Are Limited, So Enroll Now!
• Never in a million years would *Aday* have published a book with this faux-moralizing judgmental crap on the back. He veered toward sympathy and understanding, where this ... ugh. "Your kids are in danger! Read this porn to find out how!"
• Who green-lighted this back cover concept. "It'll have the color gradients of Fire!" "Will it be legib...?" "Shhhh .... FIRE!"

Page 123~

"This is what I was thinking about, when I was trying to go to sleep. How could I go to sleep when every muzzle in my body was begging for you?" 

"The word is muscle, baby, and when I get started with you, you won't be able to say scat," Nick said, taking her into his arms.

Ever muzzle in my gut wants to say scat to this guy.

~RP

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Paperback 483: The Gay Detective / Lou Rand (Saber SA-18)

Paperback 483: Saber Books SA-18 (PBO, 1961)

Title: The Gay Detective
Author: Lou Rand
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $100

Best things about this cover: 

• Not sure how legible the cover copy is, so I'll transcribe: "Francis and Tiger [!!!!!!!!!!!! ... ?] had found out what they needed to know. The trick now was to get the nude Vivien out of the bathhouse [!] and to safety."
• Of all Vivien's failed attempts to get a man, this one was perhaps the most spectacular.
• The bathhouse employed the most strapping and vigilant head lice police the world had ever known.
• Come on, even the queerest of the queer aren't going to be able to stomach that much pink.

Best things about this back cover:

• Have we seen Saber get biblical before!? This is perhaps my favorite of Sanford Aday's responses to the legal harassment his business was suffering in the late-50s / early 60s. 

Page 123~

The man is—we heard many times—a muscular masochist and confines his pleasures to young and attractive men.

"We heard many times" — that's what happens when you keep asking witnesses to "tell us the one about the muscular masochist again!"

~RP

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Paperback 476: Karla / Vern Wade (Saber SA-2)

Paperback 476: Saber Books SA-2 (PBO? 1957?) 

Title: Karla
Author: Vern Wade
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $28

Best things about this cover:

• These people look like video game avatars, or character in "Polar Express." They are going to have creepy, sweat-less, human-like sex on that sad pristine bed in 3, 2 ...
• Heflin (really?) had not quite mastered the whole vampire thing. You can't nuzzle the blood out of her, Hef!
• Now that I look at her more closely, I'm pretty sure she's inflatable and Hef is blowing her up.
• In my mind, Madame Fronzeh rides a motorcycle, wears a leather jacket, says "Ehhhhhh!," and people call her "The Fronz."

Best things about this back cover:

• More sadness from the Sanford Aday publishing houses (see also here). I've never, ever seen a publisher foreground their own economic / legal woes so aggressively. The fact that they're publishing under fire becomes part of their identity in those early years (you know, before the 25-year prison sentence ...).

Page 123~

Her hazel eyes widened. Her lips curved in an ironic smile as she rose, and moved toward me. She extended her hand to me, and her body undulated provocatively in a gesture that was confusingly familiar.

He's confused because he's repressed the memory of his mother's own ironic smiling and provocative undulation as she fixed him scrambled eggs as a child.

~RP

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Paperback 470: The Swingers / Sherri St. John (as told to Rex Nevins) (Saber SA-57)

Paperback 470: Saber Books SA-57 (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Swingers
Author: Sherri St. John, as told to Rex Nevins
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20

Best things about this cover:

• What is he doing to her? I'd say he's trying to take her bra off, but his hands are way too high. Also, she's not wearing one.
• Their awkward teenage fumbling amused hot young drunk Elizabeth Taylor.
• The world needs more orange bras.
• I thought swingers were swappers by definition. "The Swingers were faithful to their spouses"—there's your surprise headline.
• This is what happens when you paint your living room Satanic Red.
• I think I own that shirt.
• Rex Nevins really gets the ladies to open up

Best things about this back cover:

• I want to get past the first sentence, but I can't. Why is there a shower in the cockpit?
• Why Are There Air Mattresses In The Cockpit? The "Cockpit" Of What?
• "The way we were lined up was this way, left to right looking toward the bow..."; sorry, my arousal faded during the time it took me to draw a fucking diagram.

Page 123~

I kind of played with Pete's old slide rule in my hands.

Hilariously, this sentence is purely literal.

~RP

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Paperback 429: The Right Bed / Lee Walters (Saber Books SA-14)

Paperback 428: Saber Books SA-14 (unknown ptg & year, orig. 1959)

Title: The Right Bed
Author: Lee Walters
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "Homosexual demons, I cast thee OUT!"
• Original title: "Sexy Phrenologist"
• Wanda struggled to remember exactly how to treat a choking victim...
• Hey, Bill, if you want to avoid the Twilight Life, maybe you should move out of The Pinkest Apartment Building In the Universe.
• Conservative columnist Bill, humiliated that he'd been caught watching "Maddow," collapsed to the floor. Wanda knew how to save him from the temptations of liberalism—take him to "The Right Bed" (American Flag bed sheets, portrait of Reagan on the ceiling, etc.) and give him a taste of that sweet, sweet missionary action.
• ... and introducing: House Plant!

Best things about this back cover:

• Where's the stuff about Floyd (!) struggling with his sexuality!? I was promised a "twilight life" on the front cover.
• "What did Jill think of all this?" — of all What? The more you read this description, the less coherent it gets. So ... his ambition is realized through her ... and her ambition is him ... so the conflict is ... what? Nothing. This is a short story at best.
• I like how the writer takes his own metaphor literally: "Jill was his key ... With her he would open many doors." Maybe that's what we're seeing on the front cover: after trying repeatedly to stuff Jill into the keyhole, he collapsed in a pile of rage and shame.

Page 123~

Johnson roamed the paths of the party like a stray buffalo [1], big, almost shaggy, a look of massiveness [2] about his broad face.

• [1] "... like a stray buffalo, knocking over hors d'oeuvres and end tables, wondering how he got into a 5th-floor walk-up."
• [2] You cannot have a "look of massiveness." Something is either massive or it's not. "Your face looks strange darling. A bit ... massive." No.

~RP

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Paperback 399: Sex Life of a Cop / Oscar Peck (Saber Books SA-11)

Paperback 399: Saber Books SA-11 (unknown ptg, 1967)

Title: Sex Life of a Cop
Author: Oscar Peck
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not For Sale (I'm hoping to write about this book / publisher some day...)


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, that's some sex life. I'll just assume the cop is banging a hooker just off-screen, or in the very ample back seat.
• This cover is uninteresting, but the book and its history are fascinating. Well, the book is trashy and poorly written (from what I've looked at), but that didn't matter to the State of Michigan when they tried and convicted its publisher, Sanford Aday, for trafficking in obscenity. 25 year sentence, $25K fine. No idea what happened after that, but I really want to find out ... Aday's late-'50s / early '60s sleaze publishing empire (run, improbably, out of Fresno, CA, my home town) is endlessly fascinating to me. The books are almost uniformly terrible, sometimes comically so, but they are also endearing in their constant, often painfully earnest attempts to broaden the scope of public sexual discourse. Lots of books about "deviant" sexuality, incl. transvestism, homosexuality, almost all of which combine titillation with sympathetic portrayal. Promoting understanding and tolerance for non-traditional sexuality through the dissemination of ... trashy fiction? Yes. Brilliant.

Back cover just has a logo, so, straight to p. 123

Page 123~

He drove down the alley to Third Street, then turned west toward Main and he had a satisfied feeling of being lucky to get to teach the attractive girl reporter the ropes of police work. And "the ropes" was exactly what he'd like to teach her.

Ha ha, "the ropes," get it? Because ... because ... uh oh. Get Out Of The Car, Lady! (I won't tell you what actually happens—it doesn't involve ropes, but I really Really wish I hadn't just read it. [Shudder])

~RP

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Paperback 340: Youth Against Obscenity / Sharron Michelle as told to Rex Nevins (Saber Books 106)

Paperback 340: Saber Books SA-106 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Youth Against Obscenity
Author: Sharron Michelle as told to [!!!?] Rex Nevins
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $25

Best things about this cover:

• All this female flesh and I'm somehow obsessed with the driftwood (!?)
• These ... I'm gonna say 'triplets' ... have very nice bodies but scary alien faces.
• Love the cross-legged guy—just havin' a cig, checkin' out the view...
• "As told to" is perhaps the richest, awesomest thing about this cover. "Mmm, authenticish."

Best things about this back cover:

• If you made it through that second sentence (let alone the whole description) with even a fingernail still clinging to the main idea, you're a better (wo)man than I am.
• How is this description simultaneously massively detailed and exceedingly vague?: Crusading against "something?" Selling photos to "a segment of the public?"
• "Of whom..." It's like an earnest 14-yr-old wrote this.

It should be said that there are hand-written / cursive marginalia all over this book—2nd page has the beginnings of a detailed synopsis (breaks off mid-sentence [!?]) and first page has one-line rating: "VVVG perhaps the best of my 30 books"—seriously, this book's owner Really liked this book. Like the person who wrote the back cover copy, this book's owner also comes across as an earnest 14-yr-old.

Page 123~

Danny looked at Betty again, only this time his eyes took in her hair, breasts, legs, and buttocks, all at once.

It's an well-seasoned leerer who can take in breasts *and* buttocks "at once."

~RP

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