Westlake Score: Adios, Scheherazade, by Donald E. Westlake (Hodder & Stoughton, 1971)

NB: A version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker.

Before I get to the final John le Carré novel I'll be reviewing in my short series of posts on the author – i.e. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which I'm still reading – let's have a Westlake Score, in the shape of this:

A UK first edition of Adios, Scheherazade, published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton in 1971, the year after the US Simon & Schuster first. Quite an uncommon book this one: it fell out of print decades ago – in English anyway; there are more recent French editions – making it one of the scarcest of all of Donald E. Westlake's novels – either under his own name or one of his numerous nom de plumes – in any edition, especially so in this British printing. I acquired this copy – for a ridiculously low price – from famed book dealer Jamie Sturgeon, who originally acquired it from... actually I don't really know where Jamie got it from – which I guess is why he's the famed book dealer and I'm simply one of the clueless slobs wot buy books off him.

The dust jacket design is by Lipscombe, Lubbock, Ewart & Holland, doing a grand job of evoking the era, if not the specific milieu, of the novel: that of the American sleaze paperback field, in which Westlake toiled away in the late-1950s/early-1960s under a variety of aliases. Chief among those was Alan Marshall, under which moniker Westlake wrote over a dozen smutty softcovers for Midwood; I blogged about some of them towards the end of last year, inspired by Trent's series of posts over at The Violent World of Parker on the Westlake sleaze catalogue. Adios, Scheherazade is about that part of Westlake's life, and is also one of his more experimental novels; as Ethan Iverson notes in his brief precis of the book as part of his peerless Westlake overview: "here there are 10 chapters of exactly 5000 words each, just like the sex novels the hapless narrator is supposed to be writing".

Speaking of other folks' thoughts on the thing, there's a detailed review of Adios, Scheherazade over at Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books, but perhaps the best piece on the novel available online (linked previously by Andrew Wheeler, Matthew Asprey and Bill Crider) is Earl Kemp's "Nobody Can Write This Shit Forever". Kemp actually edited some of Westlake's sleaze efforts – quite heavily, if Kemp is to be believed – and his candid, gossipy reminiscences as he picks his way through Adios, Scheherazade make for entertaining and arresting reading. As Kemp drily observes: "The [Alan Marshall] manuscripts consistently rose just to almost the absolute minimum required input level."

Westlake Sleaze Scores: Man Hungry, Sally and Backstage Love by Alan Marshall (Midwood, 1959/1962)

NB: Featured as part of this week's Friday's Forgotten Books. A version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker. 

Let's get stuck into those promised Westlake Scores from the 2012 London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair, with a book which featured only very recently over on The Violent World of Parker – where I am, as you well know by now, co-blogger – as part of VWoP proprietor Trent's series of posts on Donald E. Westlake's now confirmed (by Westlake's son, Paul) pseudonymous 1950s/60s sleaze works. Although the cover on this particular printing differs from the one Trent featured:

Man Hungry, Westlake's fourth novel under the Alan Marshall pen name, and therefore Westlake's fourth (published) novel overall, published in the US by Midwood. The edition Trent spotlighted – as showcased in more depth on the official Donald E. Westlake website – was the 1959 first printing, i.e. Midwood #20, with cover art by Paul Rader, but the edition I found at the fair is the 1962 second printing, renumbered by Midwood as #147 and boasting completely different, magnificent, but sadly uncredited (and with no identifying signature) "good girl" cover art. Indeed, for its third printing, the novel would gain yet another new cover (and presumably a new number, too), although of the three, I think my favourite is the appropriately scarlet second printing.

But Man Hungry isn't the only Alan Marshall novel I've acquired of late; because, suitably inspired by Trent's posts, I went online looking for others of Westlake's early sleaze efforts, and from a British bookseller came across (so to speak) this:

A first printing of Sally – a title which, with its attendant sapphic plot, never fails to tickle me, as Sally is the name of my ex-girlfriend; don't worry, we're still friends (and she's still straight, which is more than can be said for another of my exes), and I know it tickles her too – published by Midwood in 1959. Westlake's third published novel, the cover art on this one is by the aforementioned Paul Rader (about whom you can read – and see – much more on this dedicated website, including an essay by Lynn Munroe), and a gorgeous piece (again, so to speak) it is too. The book isn't in quite so pristine condition as the copy of Man Hungry, but then again it didn't cost as much – not that Man Hungry was that expensive anyway.

Here in the UK it's unusual to come across (one last time: so to speak) American sleaze paperbacks, and especially pseudonymous Westlake ones; the only other time I have in the last few years, other than at the London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair, was when I found this in a secondhand bookshop in Essex:

Backstage Love, Westlake's second Alan Marshall novel, again published by Midwood in 1959 – cover art in this instance by the appositely named Rudy Nappi – and blogged about as a Westlake Score back in 2010. So now I own three Westlake sleaze efforts, which, given that these novels aren't exactly prime Westlake, I think is probably quite enough for any sane Westlake collector. Mind you, when has anyone ever accused me of being sane...?

Westlake Score: Backstage Love by Alan Marshall (Midwood/Tower Sleaze Paperback, 1959)

Like a lot of writers toiling in the unforgiving fields of pulpy postwar paperbacks, Donald E. Westlake wrote under an array of pseudonyms. The most famous of those is, of course, Richard Stark, under which moniker Westlake created the Parker series of crime novels in the early '60s. But as well known as that particular pen name is today, it's easy to forget that, back then, it was just one of many used by Westlake to churn out umpteen books every year. Richard Stark may have proved to be rather special, but from Westlake's perspective there weren't nothing special 'bout Stark at the time.

Aside from Stark, Westlake wrote books under the names Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Curt Clark. But all of those pseudonyms debuted after Stark's debut, 1962's The Hunter; there are a whole boatload more alter egos who preceded the birth of Richard Stark. I blogged about one of those, John B. Allan, back at the start of June, but Allan's single contribution to the Westlake canon, a 1961 biography of Elizabeth Taylor, is somewhat mild in comparison to the material published under some of his other nom de plumes in the late '50s and early '60s. For, like many of his contemporaries, including Lawrence Block, Westlake bashed out (so to speak) dozens of pseudonymous soft porn paperbacks.

Now, I hadn't intended to start collecting any of the soft porn books Westlake wrote under names like Edwin West or Andrew Shaw. But as luck would have it, a chance trip to a bookshop over in Essex the other week turned up a novel written under the disguise that Westlake used the most for his more titillating titles:

A US paperback of Backstage Love by Alan Marshall, published by the amusingly named Midwood/Tower Publications in 1959. This was lurking in a pile of similarly smutty paperbacks in an alcove under some stairs to the side of the rather ramshackle shop. It took me a few moments before I realised what it was; I would've recognised one of the better-known Westlake alter egos right away, but I'm less familiar with the filthier end of his oeuvre. And not carrying the complete annotated list of Westlake wank-fodder round in my head, I wasn't completely sure Backstage Love was the genuine article: quite apart from the immediate poser of whether Alan Marshall was indeed Westlake, there's also the thorny problem that, as with many of these soft porn author identities, other writers also used the Alan Marshall moniker, so not all the Marshall-written books were by Donald E. Westlake.

I'd like to say I leafed through the book and immediately recognised Westlake's style, but while these opening lines:

He had to change buses in New York, with a two hour wait. He had never been in New York City before, so he left the Port Authority Terminal and walked up a block to 42nd Street. It was early June and the late-morning sun made the sidewalks look bright and the buildings look clean.

could conceivably have been penned by him, coming across as proto-Stark, they could also have been penned by countless other writers. No, what I think really tipped me off was the setting for the novel: a summer stock theatre. That's a theme that Westlake has returned to more than once, with the events of Pity Him Afterwards (1964) being set in a similar location, and Alan Grofield from the Parker novels spending his summers acting in stock theatre. And anyway, at £1.50 it was worth the gamble.

There's a few copies of Backstage Love on AbeBooks for up to £25, but those are all in the States; it's unusual to chance across a copy in a UK bookshop. I rhapsodised briefly on Sunday about the pre-internet 1970s and 1980s (and even '90s) when books like this were tantalisingly out of reach for us Brits; finding this book was almost like stepping back in time to those years, when a junk shop in Penge Market might, if you're lucky, turn up a dreamed-of comic or paperback. I figured that sort of thing just didn't happen anymore, with collectors being so virulent. Turns out, it does.

The cover artist on Backstage Love is the appropriately named Rudy Nappi, who, rather ironically given the book's naughty nature, is best known for his covers for that squeakiest of squeaky clean characters, Nancy Drew. Which just goes to show, everyone has a dark side...

New Arrival: Elizabeth Taylor by John B. Allan (A Biography by Donald E. Westlake)

Here's something a bit different; this turned up yesterday, a late birthday present from my friend Adam:














A 1961 US Monarch paperback biography of Elizabeth Taylor by one John B. Allan – "first publication anywhere", as it helpfully states on the cover, with the alluring tag line, "The fascinating story of America's most talented actress and the world's most beautiful woman" – which makes it sound slightly as if the book's an expose of a lesbian romance between Liz and another (unnamed, but apparently beautiful) woman.

So the obvious question here is: why on earth would I be interested in this book? And indeed I was similarly perplexed when Adam told me he'd got it for me, standing, as we were, in a queue for the toilet at a London pub over the weekend. Probably not the strangest conversation I've ever had in a pub loo queue, but certainly right up there. Thankfully, Adam later explained why he'd got it for me: John B. Allan was one of Donald Westlake's many pseudonyms, alongside the likes of Tucker Coe, Alan Marshall, and, of course, Richard Stark. And actually, reading the first line of the book, you can really feel that Westlake/Stark touch:

"When Richard Burton walked in the room, Liz threw the whiskey bottle at him."

OK, I made that up; the Taylor aficionados out there would of course know that Liz didn't meet Burton until the filming of Cleopatra, which happened after this book was written. (In fact, this brief volume begins with an account of Liz's brush with death in a Dorchester hotel suite in 1961, which in its own way is a very Westlake starting point.) Anyway, it's a splendid curio, and not readily available this side of the pond, so thank you very much, Adam!