Paperback 551: God's Little Acre / Erskine Caldwell (Great Pan G148)

Paperback 551: Great Pan G148 (1st thus, 1958)

Title: God's Little Acre
Author: Erskine Caldwell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $23
Best things about this cover:

• The Professor and Ginger never did see eye to eye.
• It's like they're having a clenchedmouth-off and she's winning—though it looks like the judge in the background there is about to call "illegal use of boobs." We'll see...
• Zeke likes to watch.
• I think she was overcome by Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" and had to be shaken out of her rockin' reverie before she tore up all the hay bales.
• Zeke, on the other hand, is immune to Bon Jovi's charms.
• Movie tie-in! 

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, they sure picked a dramatic scene for this back cover. And by "dramatic" I mean "one that showcases Tina Louise's tits to the fullest."
• Chivalry isn't dead, it's just horribly, horribly mutated.
• "Gusty vitality"??? Did they mean "gutsy"? Did they conflate "gutsy" and "gusto." "You know, the vitality of his writing ... it's got a ... windlike quality to it ..."

Page 123~

Ty Ty put one foot inside the room and leaned against the door-frame. He watched her roll and unroll her stockings and hang them over the back of the chair. She got up quickly and stood at the foot of the bed.

I *knew* creepy, overt, unwelcome voyeurism was going to figure prominently in this book. The cover artist did his job well.

~RP

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Paperback 436: Midsummer Passion / Erskine Caldwell (Avon 177)

Paperback 436: Avon 177 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Midsummer Passion
Author: Erskine Caldwell
Cover artist: Ann Cantor

Yours for: $19


Best things about this cover:

• "With your permission, my lady ... May I sniff these?"
• He is appropriately grubby. She is impossibly clean.
• All I can think is "Really? Right on a bed of lettuce? Isn't there a nice flat patch of lawn nearby where you can have your furtive rustic tumble?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Once again, Shakespeare approves!

Page 123~

"I ain't going to let that good-for-nothing Canuck get his hands on the best farm in the whole gol-darned country. Come on to the village and get it settled right away."

For some Boston Bruins fans, winning the Stanley Cup was not enough. Canucks must be made to suffer year-round!

~RP

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Paperback 390: Old Hell / Emmett Gowen (Blue Seal 2)

Paperback 390: Red Seal 2 (1st ptg, 1937)

Title: Old Hell
Author: Emmett Gowen
Cover artist: Howard Simon

Yours for: $35


Best things about this cover:

• The single scariest mustache of all time. Don't believe me? Imagine kissing that guy. Yeah, that's right.
• Two things you don't want to mess with: Ma's toothpicks and Ma's salt.
• I have no idea what this book is about—it's a pre-Pocket Books paperback (pre-1939, rare), put out by Modern Age Books on what appears to be a subscription basis. There is a mint condition Business Reply Card (slash bookmark!) tucked inside the cover:

No point scanning the back cover—just a Blue Seal Books logo on a brown background.

Page 123~

It's so hot I can feel the drops of sweat like something I wouldn't name was a-crawling on my belly.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!? Part of me really wants to know what the "something" is, and the other (bigger) part is thanking god he wouldn't name it.

~RP

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Paperback 266: Hill Girl / Charles Williams (Gold Medal 141)

Paperback 266: Gold Medal 141 (PBO, 1951)

Title: Hill Girl
Author: Charles Williams
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• This is my nominee for "Most Phallic Gun Ever"
• "Maybe if I just sidle along this wall *very* slowly, that yokel standing four feet in front of me won't see me ..."
• Tori Spelling is ... Hill Girl!
• Guy in background: "Excuse me, I was just On The Road and I was wondering if ... oh, I see you're having some kind of altercation or mating ritual ... I'll just move along."
• This book is credited as "the first original paperback" by Jim Silke (Dames, Dolls & Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire). But ... there are 40 Gold Medal pbs published before this one, almost all of them paperback originals (as far as I can tell). So ... I was confused by the claim. Maybe it's the first paperback to say, on the cover, "an original novel — not a reprint"? The wikipedia entry for "Gold Medal" confirms that it was publishing original paperbacks in 1950.
• Here's a nice write-up of Charles Williams by Bill Crider.

Best things about this back cover:

• I like back cover copy that gets right to the point.
• Who is "I" in this scenario?

Page 123~

The flowers were there in the room when we came in. She put her arms around my neck and pulled down hard, with the way she had, like a drowning swimmer, and with her lips against my ear she whispered fiercely, "Hold me tight like this, Bob. Don't ever let me go." [end of chapter]

~RP

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Paperback 187: Cabin Road / John Faulkner (Gold Medal 178)

Paperback 187: Gold Medal 178 (PBO, 1951)
Title: Cabin Road
Author: John Faulkner
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "If you loved William, then it's within the realm of possibility that you might not hate ... John Faulkner!"
• Erskine Caldwell paperbacks sold by the bushel, and they invariably featured unspeakably hot hillbilly women who had all their teeth. I guess the idea was that the poor were "earthy" (i.e. liked to do it). So there is a kind of post-"Tobacco Road" vogue in backwoods babery that you can see in a number of 1950s paperbacks.
• Can a hillbilly be "ribald?"
• This woman is a mess from the neck up. It's like someone photoshopped her head on wrong. Or broke her neck, waited for rigor mortis to set in, and then propped her up there.

Best things about this back cover:

• Uh, nothing
• Again with the "ribald"
• See, I told you - "Tobacco Road"-ishness was clearly the selling point here
• Steinbeck? *William* Faulkner? OK, now you're pushing it
• "Earthy" "Ribald" "Lusty" ... "female problems"!? Does that mean the same thing it means now? Hey, what does it mean now? Wasn't that the name of a movie starring Divine?

Page 123~

"I don't see nothing to want to stand over there about," George said. "Hit looks like to me the floor's about the same as it is where at you're standing, what of it you can see fer them dogs. Ain't you comfortable there?"

I'm ... going to need a translator.

~RP