Paperback 1140: Undress Rehearsal / John Carver (Softcover Library 95265)

Paperback 1140: Softcover Library 95265 (1st ptg, late '60s to 1970)

Title: Undress Rehearsal

Author: John Carver

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10    

Value: $12

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Seems pretty bored for someone at an orgy. "What an orgy!" "Meh, it's OK." Maybe that wicker chair seat just isn't that comfortable to sit in naked.
• What is she holding? A leaf? A shoe? A feather? I also have a follow-up question. Namely, "Why?"
• Those thigh-high black leather fetish boots are shiny and spectacular. I just wish she seemed to be getting any joy from them.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The backs of sleaze paperbacks fall into two categories: brief, enigmatic, typo-ridden prose poems that seem to have been translated hastily from some lost Central European language; or, treatises.
• I took one look at the name "Roz" and thought, "oh that's definitely the requisite lesbian." I was close. 
• "Adults could make love with youngsters"—did that *ever* sound good? "Youngsters?" It's better than "children," I guess, but only barely.

Page 123~

"Filthy. It is even more disgusting in the flesh. A degenerate, characterless story containing the grossest invitations to moral disintegration. I object—and I shall go on objecting."

There's your back cover blurb right there. Just ascribe it to some the head of some fictional Public Morals Org. and you're in business! 

~RP

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Paperback 797: Anatomy of Seduction / Jud Blaine (Softcover Library B856X)

Paperback 797: Softcover Library B856X (PBO, 1965)

Title: Anatomy of Seduction
Author: Jud Blaine
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The angle of his head … is the best thing about this cover. "Uh … hi, Mrs. Boobs, can, uh, boobs come out and, uh ... boobs?"
• THAT. Not THE woman. THAT woman. Oh, suburban scandal, I love you so much.
• "Uh, I like your hair … it's like the cotton candy they got at the midway."
• "Uh … thanks … I think it's called 'Members Only' …"
• This should be called "Anatomy of a doorknob" 'cause that is some nice detail there.
• The phrase "teen-age innocence" is hilarious.
• You can choose any pseudonym and you go with "Jud"? I really hope that's short for "Judy." 

Best things about this back cover:

• That's a lot of weight to put on a word normally reserved nowadays for a leg syndrome.
• The whole "filthy suburbanite" genre amuses me no end. "Behind the veneer of middle-class respectability: orgies."
• "Sudden froth of lust"! That's the textual equivalent of the money shot right there.
• If the book scorches my memory … then … fuck, I forgot what I was going to say.

Page 123~

"You want a drink, baby?"
"No, thank you. Nor do you."
He grinned at her. "You'd make a nice, nagging wife."
"I've been a wife to too many men ever to be foolish enough to tie up with one."

Well if she doesn't want that drink, I'll take it.

~RP

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Paperback 751: The Oddballs / Stacey Clubb (Softcover Library B853X)

Paperback 751: Softcover Library B853X (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Oddballs
Author: Stacey Clubb
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not For Sale—part of the Doug Peterson Collection


Best things about this cover:

• "I don't think they're so odd," he said, self-consciously.
• So many questions. Such as, where has her right arm got to? Or, why their bed is a parallelogram?
• Remember the fad of wearing two differently colored stockings!? Me either.
• "You awake? … tickle tickle! … alright then, I'm just going to remove your head with my jaws now, OK? Just relax."
• "The only practical sex was unnatural sex!" — Having trouble understanding the use of the word "practical" here. "Well, see, I would just put my penis in your vagina, but … it's really not practical for me ... right now … at this juncture … you know? So, let's just bring in the elephant and the mustard and see how it goes, mkay? It's just easier that way."

Best things about this back cover:

• Shadowy = Lesbiany. In case you're unfamiliar with paperback code.
• INA, ha ha! Calling all crossword constructors, we got a live one!
• I want a business card that reads "Encourager of odd rites and practices."

Page 123~

The sting of his blow had not penetrated.

Nope, sorry, that was just the first thing I opened to. Hang on … OK, here we go:

"Bernice," he called out.

But the bikini-clad goddess who appeared casually at the top of the mezzanine stairs in response to his blithe summons was not, of course, Bernice.

If ever there was a name custom-made for softcore porn, that name is Blithe Summons.

~RP

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Paperback 371: The Love Clinic / Gil Hara (Softcover Library S95277)

Paperback 371: Softcover Library S95277 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Love Clinic
Author: Gil Hara
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Her eyeshadow. Dang.
• Why can't I get Neil Sedaka's "Having My Baby" out of my head!?!?
• "You know ... *those* girls. What's up with them?"
• One of scads of Kinsey-inspired softcore paperback offerings that populated racks in the '50s and '60s, although this one is more about labs studying the physiology of sex than surveys studying the sexual habits of a population. Whatever, the "how can it be science when it turns me on?" issue still applies.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. Text.
• This book goes from mere description ("...girls are observed during climax") to judgmental sensationalism ("...men bare perverse lusts") without even blinking.
• And, once again, we lead with rape. Yeesh.
• "These volunteers must really be perverted, right? Right? Can you believe the shamelessness of these perverts? You better buy this book and furtively peep into their lives while you masturbate ... because that is *not* perverted. Not at all."
• I love how this book barely ever indicates that it's fiction (I think "novel" is the only word, front or back, that signals fiction). Nothing on the front cover suggests "fiction." Even the photo cover suggests a documentary approach.

Page 123~

She used to think it worthwhile to serve such a brilliant man. But now he was methodically tearing the clothes off her.

~RP

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Paperback 244: Split-Level Love / Carlton Gibbs (Softcover Library B1057S)

Paperback 244: Softcover Library B1057S (2nd, 1967)

Title: Split-Level Love
Author: Carlton Gibbs
Cover artist: uncredited [Ernest Chiriaka ("Darcy")]

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "This is a rather odd lap dance ma'am ... ma'am ... why are you looking in my ear, ma'am?"
• I wonder what the pink "V" stands for?
• Her lower leg is scary thin.
• Adoption and abortion ... how topical!?
• Carlton Gibbs ... was that the doorman on "Rhoda" or the cousin of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

Best things about this back cover:

• Brig Doncaster? Seriously, my paperback collection is killing me with these names! Tell me "Doncaster" doesn't sound like "Dong-caster."
• There's a whole subset of 60s sex paperbacks about "Suburbia" and the goings-on there. Suburbia is to 60s paperbacks what Juvenile Delinquency is to late-50s paperbacks.

Page 123~

She let him divest her, just the same, of the flimsy fluffs he had given her. She trembled at his touch. His was the kind of diabolical male charm a woman could hate and yet become heedlessly intoxicated with. She could stand there loathing the fact that he had taken hundreds of bras off scores of women [pausing ... doing math ...] and yet thrill to his removing hers. She could grow faint when he touched his lips to her taut breast regardless of how many others he had kissed. She could shiver visibly when his hands slid away her final garment although they were far too practiced.

Brig Doncaster, divester of flimsy fluffs and irresistible asshole extraordinaire.

~RP

Paperback 241: Mother, Daughter and Lover / G.G. Fickling (Softcover Library B1069S)

Paperback 241: Softcover Library B1069S (2nd ptg?, 1967ish)

Title: Mother, Daughter and Lover
Author: G. G. Fickling
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Does my bra strap smell weird to you?"
• "The Intimate Confessions of a Beach Boy" — Brian Wilson at his nadir ... or apex, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
• We've seen Fickling's work before — they (yes, they) wrote the Honey West novels. I like that their name is a mash-up of "fickle" and "fucking" ... and "finger-licking," sort of.
• I like the idea that there is a ranking system for the relative explosiveness of Sex Triangles.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Well preserved?!?!" HA ha. Like a mummy.
• "Her eyes ... stopped at my wet trunks and narrowed." That's pretty good, as sex fiction cover copy goes. "Youthful, upthrust flesh," less so.

Page 123~

Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pane of glass.

It's bad enough that you have to use the painful adverb "shatteringly" — do we really need the simile? Glass is the First thing evoked by "shattering." I mean, what else is the shattering supposed to signal? "Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pot pie."

~RP

P.S. I was thrilled recently to hear that my blog had inspired one of my readers to start her own vintage pb collection. Check out one of her initial purchases here. It's ... jaw-dropping.

Paperback 233: The Sisterhood / Sheldon Lord (pseud. of Lawrence Block) (Softcover Library S95189)

Paperback 233: Softcover Library S95189 (unknown ptg, 1970?)

Title: The Sisterhood
Author: Sheldon Lord (pseud. of Lawrence Block)
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "Oh, your Scottie-hair wig is so soft ... it makes me want to unbutton my shirt..."
• If there's one thing lesbians love more than anything else, it's grooming each other like monkeys.
• The tall one looks like a transsexual Joan Collins ... is that redundant?
• "swamp of bisexual love!" - worst thing about it: all the damned mosquitoes

Best things about this back cover:

• "For Women Only" - somehow, I doubt that
• "Happy Lesbos Hunting Ground" should totally, Totally be the name of a Vermont resort
• "Countess!" O, man, this stuff is rich
• "Infiltrate men's professions" - holy crap, it's an allegory about feminism. E.R.A. = exotic lesbian plot
• "strange" = paperback cover word of choice for referring to the gays. See also "twilight world," "in-between," etc.

Page 123~

Persistent, isn't he? she thought to herself. Then into the phone, "Look, Brad. Let's take this from the top, huh? I mean - besides the fact that I happen to be, shall we say, occupied - there's something that maybe you haven't thought of."

"Huh? What?" he said desperately.

~RP

P.S. Everyone within earshot of this blog is going to want to go out and pick up / order a copy of "Dames, Dolls & Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire" (Dark Horse, 2009). It's a loving, glossy, gorgeous tribute to the greatest paperback cover artist that ever lived (IMHO). Literally, every page I turn, I find myself whispering "wow..." It's a reasonably affordable oversized paperback - the large scale reproductions of the art are what really make this book worthwhile. Plus it has lots of insights into Maguire's process, some of the photos he used as references, pencil sketches, etc. See an online flipbook version of the book here. Then buy it. Now.


P.P.S. Article by writer Brian Ritt about sleaze fiction master Orrie Hitt - find it here (this is why I "Follow" Christa Faust on Twitter)