Paperback 1033: The Black Mass of Brother Springer / Charles Willeford (Black Lizard nn)

Paperback 1033: Black Lizard (no number) (1st ptg, 1989)

Title: The Black Mass of Brother Springer
Author: Charles Willeford
Cover artist: Kirwan

Condition: 9/10
Estimated value: $35-40

Best things about this cover:

• An interesting variation on the "Killer's POV" cover. Hands that would normally be coming to strangle her are instead filled with Bible.
• Those thumbs get creepier the longer you stare at them.
• Willeford is a master. I have read stuff where he has written really interestingly and provocatively about race (and racism). I have no idea what kind of territory this book gets into, though...

Best things about this back cover:

• He was white. She was ... ? So much white male gaze here. No idea if the book critiques or revels in this whole way of seeing blackness. I'd guess the former. I really should read it.
• Jim Thompson is the author that got me into vintage paperback collecting (long story I'll tell some other time, when one of his books comes up ... or maybe I've told it already—I've been at this blog a long long time and there's lots I've forgotten about what stories I have and haven't told). Anyway, the irony here is that I don't care for Jim Thompson any more. He was the gateway ... but now the gateway has dissolved, or become irrelevant, or something. Weird how these things happen.
• I think my next collecting effort will involve these '80s Black Lizards, before the imprint was bought out by Vintage (those early Vintage/Black Lizards were part of the whole Jim Thompson Gateway To Paperbackville...)

Page 123~

The shadow I stared at was not a part of the regular inventory I saw every day.
      And then the shadow stretched.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 1005: All Men Are Liars / John Stephen Strange (Dell 438)

Paperback 1005: Dell 438 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: All Men Are Liars
Author: John Stephen Strange
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Condition: 6/10
Estimated value: $5-10

Best things about this cover:

• "I solemnly swear ... aw, who am I kidding? All men are liars, amirite!? Up top!"
• Her side-eye! I really should have a "Women Looking At Losers" blog tag. (See Paperback 1004)
• Her mustard suit is smokin'
• Shouldn't "man about town" be hyphenated? ... wow, even dictionaries seem divided on this one. One thing no one's divided on: the Ben Affleck movie "Man About Town" is probably best left back in 2006.

Best things about this back cover;

• Mapback!
• Love the Gay '90s font on the title, wtf
• How have they managed to make Manhattan look so boring? So many things on that island we get ... a generic courtroom interior!?
• The crossword maker in me is like "hmm... is HDQRS really a valid abbr.?"

Page 123~

Won Way Street rose and strolled across the well of the court.

Sorry. I'm dead. That name just killed me.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 111: Stars in My Crown / Joe David Brown (Teen Age Book Club T45)

Paperback 111: Teen Age Book Club T45 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Stars in My Crown
Author: Joe David Brown
Cover artist: Gould K. Hulse, Jr. (I think ... he's credited with the "decorations" on the inside)

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm your new preacher and I aim to give my first sermon right here ... even if I am jaundiced and half-drunk. Or drunk and half-jaundiced. Or dronk and half-jundiced. Point is, I got me a 12-pound Bible and this here gun, so what I says goes. Now if I can just traverse this comically high door frame..." "That's a window, you moron!" "In the name of Jesus, you better shut up!"
• Seriously, who taught this artist perspective? A five-year-old surrealist with bad eyes?
• The colors are so ... life-like. If your life exists only in primary colors and whatever color that guy in the corner is.
• Our hero looks like a sickly, less charismatic Robert Mitchum.
• What is that thing protruding from the chin of the man in the SW corner? A growth? A pouch of some kind? I want to say "beard" but ... it's got oddly regularly molded ridges on the end...

Best things about this back cover:

• "Grandpa"
• Why isn't this book called "Death Stalks the Parish" - it's a bit Agatha Christie, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current title
• Teen Age Book Club: For Teen Agers who are too emaciated to read standing upright.

Page 123~

"They didn't have no lamps when Ah went to school," he said, "an' Ah reckon what was good enough for me is good enough for the chil'lun [... sic!] nowadays."

~RP