Wayward Girl – Orrie Hitt (Beacon #288, 1960)

This one is far better than Orrie Hitt’s other juvie novel, The Torrid Teens – both published in 1960 although Wayward Girl was a month or two before Torrid Teens, as tis is Beacon #288 and Teens #294 (we’re talking a month difference here).

The wayward girl is  young Sandy Greening and he white trash nowhere life — she was raped by a neighbor at 14 but liked it, started running with a gang and prostituting at 15, got hooked on heroin (but not too badly) at 16.

Her father is in prison for trying to hold up a gas station and her mother is a lush who runs around with criminals and bad boys.  She in turn runs around with a street gang, is not quite a “deb” but makes herself available for the use of the club house, where she sometimes brings her johns.

She works part time in a deli, where she meets out of town men or dock workers who pay her $5-10, sometimes $20, for a lay.  She believes in giving men what they pay for and sometimes enjoys it.  She wants to work her way up to a high class $100/night call girl and lead a nicer life.

One night an older man offers her $25 and she goes to his hotel room but it’s a police sting and she’s arrested.  She was witness to a murder in a rumble the night before (a rival gang gang-raped one of their debs) but she plays dumb.

She is sent to a special reform school for first offenders, much better she is told than most reform institutes for young women, and far better than prison.  There, she goes cold turkey off the heroin and it’s a hellish two weeks before she kicks it.

Some of the other girls are pregnant, in for drugs or hooking, and half seem to be lesbians or dabbling in the third sex for lack of men.  She vows never to go that route but she is blackmailed into lesbiana by one of the house-mothers, who holds her future well-being in lock.  Still, Sandy finds she enjoys the forced kisisngs and lickings of another woman — “Sandy had never dreamed of the completeness of this kind of love” (p. 92).

She is given a weekend pass to stay with a family in town, only to find that the man of the house — a fat slob of a guy — expects sex from her, or else he will tell the house-mother to give her a bad report and have her sent to regular jail.  He is paying the house-mother $25 for every girl she sends for him to have sex with.  Sandy sees it ironic that she was convicted for prostitution only to be pimped out by the state employees who are supposed to be “reforming” her as a good citizen of society.

The slob’s son, 19, however, falls in love with Sandy and wants to marry her, but she can’t see how he can feel that way for a girl like her, especially if he ever found out she was sleeping with his father.

When Sandy is released, she goes back to work at the diner where men are expecting her to return to doing $5-10 tricks, and where her gang mates expect her to return to the Life of rumbling and shooting heroin.

Sometimes at tad preachy and moral, this is still an excellent read, even with the sappy happy ending.  Hitt seems to be writing a book made-to-order for Beacon, as the storyline is similar to others, but here he does an excellent job.

On the Hitt Scale, a 9.2.

Passion Pirate – George Baker (Bedside Book #1228, 1962)

It seems Bedtime/Bedside Books had three owners in its short life from 1959-1963.  It was a pioneer in sleaze, and Robert Silverberg’s association with them as David Challon and Mark Ryan was impetus for William Hamling to start Nightstand Books, starting with Silverberg’s Don Elliott novel, Love Addict.

Owned by Valient Publications, when Hamling bought the company out in 1961, Bedstand was changed to Bedside and was owned by Pert Publications, one of Hamling’s many shell companies. Looking at Victor Berch’s Bedstand/Bedside Checklist in Books Are Everything#20, the Haling run started at #1201 with Silverberg’s Don Elliott Woman Chaser, and went to #1224, Lawrence Block’s Andrew Shaw Gutter Girl . All the bylines were Cornith regulars: Dean Hudson, Alan Marshall, Clyde Allison, Al James, etc.

From  #1225 to #1251, the books were issued by EKS Publishers (seems to be the same as LS Publishers, with Bellringer and Gaslight Books) and the bylines were different.  My theory has been that Hamling still owned the imprint but changed the shell company and pen names to keep the feds off his back for them.  This seemed apparent to me with #1225, Sin Professor by Frank Peters, that read a lot ike Hal Dresner’s writing and had a character named Poltnik in it, for Dresner’s buddy Art Plotnik.

The bylines for Bedside’s end run seemed to all be generic names like Peters, and David Andrews, David Spencer, Jack Lechien.  The only names that I have seen with other publishers is Monte Steele and William F. Frank.

I have purchased a number of these, looking for Cornith styles. When reading Passion Pirate, I at first thought this was an Lawrence Block — it opens, in tight Block-like prose, with two broke drifters seeking out women to use and live with, scouring Greenwich Village.  They are Sebastian Wolff and Earl Dreggs.  They seemed a lot like two similar Lotahrios in Block’s Sheldon Lord Pads Are for Passion.

Reading further, however, I realized this was not Block, and when I got to a scene where a character puts on a record by an Albany-based singer named Plotnik, I realized George Baker was the same as Frank Peters, and this wasn’t Hal Dresner but Art Plotnik.  Plotnik was indicating that he was the author by adding himself in, and making fun of himself, as a character mentions having seen Plotnik in person and was “kind of weird.”

Plotnik was handled by the Scott Meredith Agency, so Bedside was getting its books from the same wellspring as Midwood and Nightstand and who-knows-who-else.

Passion Pirate was surprisingly good, a terse tale with real-feeling characters. Sebastian is the ladies man, a sly devil who seems to be able to hypnotize any woman who crosses his path, causing them to become submissive and hand over their pads, money, and hearts.  His sidekick, Earl, is a lug who seems to only get the leftovers and broken hearts — you know, the fellow who takes advantage of women hurting and on the rebound.

At the top, Sebastian picks up Christine, a 22-year-old Village nowhere girl whose rich Boston daddy is supporting for her a year as she writes poetry and tries to make a name for herself.  Sebastian wiggles his way into her pad and her heart, promising her he knows a literary agent who can get her poems published.

The agent is Cynthia, a married older woman who had a one night stand with Sebastian two years ago and still yearns for him.  She agrees to handle the poems if he agrees to fuck her twice  a week.  She claims her husband or no man has been able to please her since her once time with him.

Many women  seem to be the same. Sebastian is not only a lover, but a fighter, defending the honor of women with his fists, “speaking like an actor,” moving like a panther through the Village streets and bars.  Despite living with Christine, Sebastian can pick up women within an hour, make them fall in love, and break their hearts.  One is Ginny, that Earl runs into — Ginny was Earl’s ex-girlfriend that Sebastian has seduced.  Ginny lets Earl move in with her but she really wants him to get Sebastian back.

A lot of libertine sex goes on, including one gang bang scene with Christine as she fucks five guys in a row to get back at Sebastian’s infidelity.  The scene is more sad than erotic.

The novel ends in that weird way some of early Block books do, but this isn’t Block. I am convinced it is Art Plotnik now.

Flames of Desire by M.J. Deer (France Books, 1963)

I have a number of titles from France Books here, that I will be looking at over the forthcoming months.

France seems to have been a part of the Hollywood-Los Angeles-vased American Art Enterprises, that had a number of imprints like Boudoi, Epic, Pillow, and later reprinted Midwood books under new titles and pen names when they acquired Harry Shorten’s inventory, because he owed them money, and American Art was known to have mob-ties — you don’t owe the mob money without having problems.  The Mafia had its hands in the sleaze book biz by the end of the 1960s and in the 70s, responsible for some really bad, trashy books.

The curious thing about France is that the book neverlist the author on the cover or spine, only on the ttle page.  Some of the photo model covrs also folded out, showing more of the women.

This particular book, Flames of Desire, is a grand example of a cover that has nothing whatsoever with the text. The cover, as you can see, shows a man and woman going at in a convertible — a common image for sleaze books, but the back cover copy tells something else:

The Ancients of the 20th Century, with their Ten Days’ War, had left the western country a bleak, radioactive desolation through which the Princess Yolande had led her hill people for years, in search of the fabled Tri-Cities of the Imperials.

The Princess dared not lose herself in the arms of any man lest she lose her power over him at the same time. But her servant-girls were lush and lovely, eager and willing, so that the lack of men to love was not a critical problem.

Wild Pursuit by Bill Lauren (Merit Books, 1961)

I got this book in an eBay lot; it was falling apart and in bad shape and I’d never heard of the author, but it looked interesting and it was a Merit/Camerarts title so I gave it a try, as a “wild” titled novel.

Who is Bill Lauren? Real name or pen name?  Who knows.  But he did a number of titles for Merit.

Wild Pursuit wastes no time and jumps right into the action from the first paragraph:

The blonde was split from neckline to waist and a bare, trembling breast poked out at me. She wasn’t trying to cover it because hshe had her hands full wih the torn top of her capri pants.

Her eyes were wide with pleading. “Help me! Please, help me!” (p. 5)

The blonde is Eddi, short for Edwina, on the run from goons trying to kill her.  She’s a cigarette girl at a club owned by the local Sndiacte boss, who is a choots with the town’s sheriff — both are planning to murder a politician getting in their way.  She overheard their planning it and need to shut her up.  So she’s on the run — and ran into the cabin of Brigham Galt, the narrator, a building contractor in the town of Marklyn (state unknown).

She’s hot, she’s in danger, and Galt has been separated from his wife for six weeks, after he caught her in bed with another man — so why not help her?  Even with the goons shooting at them, and then kidnapping his secretary and raping her, threatening to kill her if he doesn’t give up Eddi.

But since he’s had great sex with Eddi only hours after she came running into his cabin for help, he’s got feelings for her…

But there’s still his estranged wife, whom he has make-up sex with the next morning after being with Eddi…ah, the sex lives of sleaze book heroes!

It had all the usual sterotypical tough hero, gun-toting hoods, bad cops, and over-sexed dames, the elements that make for good men’s fiction of the 1960s, or even now.  This is no work of art by any long shot, but like Jerry M. Goff’s and  most Novel/Merit titles, a fast-paced, tough-guy good read. I’m interested in reading others by Bill Lauren.

Tropic of Carla by Jerry M. Goff, Jr. (Merit Books, 1963)

I was previously impressed with Jerry M. Goff, Jr.’s Thrill Crazy and Wanton Wench! and continue to be so with Tropic of Carla.  I have been amassing all his other books for future reading.

His novels aren’t perfect by any means, and have any number of flaws that many books like these do, but there is a certain assured quality of story-telling, mixed with good manly two-fisted hardboiled-ness typical of Merit/Novel Books, that tickle my noir funny bones.

Wanton Wench! was about a sea diving bum getting into some trouble because of a rich woman; Tropic of Carla is about a pilot bum getting into trouble because of a rich woman, Carla Lopez.  The narrator, Dino Shawn, muses on it:

I had been in boxes before, but never like this.  And all because of a beautiful woman with a fantastic figure.   But what the hell? I thought. Life without beautiful women and fabulous builds wouldn’t be worth living. I had no other choice but to do General Lopez’ bidding. (p. 81)

Dino had been forced to fly a fighter plane for a small banana republic dictatrorship, a fictional Latin American country, Tammara…

Orrie Hitt — Who Was He?

The name Orrie Hitt has come up several times the past week that I thought I’d address the topic briefky.

Like Max Collier, Mike Avallone, Carter Brown, Don Elliott, J.X. Williams, and John Dexter, Orrie Hitt published hundreds of sleazecore novels in the mid 1950s to the early 1970s.

In an email, Barry Malzberg wrote to me:

Orrie Hitt was a real guy in Mississippi, big jolly fat guy Gil Orlovitz told me who wrote this stuff to put his daughters through college.  They got through college and he quit.  Later he died (in his 50′s).  I don’t know if that’s true but it sounds reasonable.

(A curious side note: a fellow Malzberg fan told me that a bookseller we shall not name once had a Mel Johnson/Orrie Hitt Softcover Library double novel set at a high price and would not slash the price down, claiming that Malzberg penned the Hitt book, that Malzberg was (1) either Orrie Hitt or (2) borrowed the pen name.  ”You’re getting two Malzbrgs in one book!” said vintage bookseller who apparently did not know his vintage writers. Malzberg has confirmed to me that he did not pen any Hitt book, like others penned Carter Browns or John Dexters.)

Doing the nifty Google search, one hit on Hitt from a blog has this to pontificate:

Orrie Hitt Wrote the Great American Novel– Over & Over/ Why “Confidential” Continues to Thrill/ The Sweet Ride of Mail Art/And Which Mayors Are Married to the Mob?

Who the Hell was Orrie Hitt? Orrie Hitt wrote “racy” pulp fiction in the 50′s and 60′s. Most of it published in PBO’s (paperback originals). Skipping the hardback route, premiering in ephemera that sported covers alive with totally killer babes and guys in various states of mayhem. Married with children, Hitt wrote from a trailer in upstate New York, tossing back iced coffee and tapping out classics of sleaze on a battered manual in a matter of days. Meanwhile, angst ridden authors in cultural Meccas sweated bullets to produce a novel every seven years or so. God made the world in six days but Hitt made his in less. Again and again.

Here’s a Hitt bio in less than 100 words:

Hitt had a grinding regimen, twelve-hour days in front of an aged Remington Royal perched on the kitchen table, surrounded by iced coffee, noisy children and Winston cigarettes, pausing only for supper or to watch wrestling or Sergeant Bilkoon the television.

Hitt produced a novel every two weeks, for which he was paid as little as $250.

—Lee Server in Over My Dead Body: The Sensational Age of the American Paperback: 1945-1955

Another blogger writes:

…How many young men in the 1950s and 1960s poured over the Orrie Hitt novels published by Beacon and Midwood with titles like DORMITORY GIRLS? I went on line and found a Orrie Hitt novel titled THE SUCKER. The back cover blurb had the headline “One Damn Girl After Another.” In this day of explicit sexual content on television, it is hard to imagine the time when this sort of thing was borderline legal. On that back cover there is the wonderful rundown of the women the hero knew including one with whom he “…conspired by day and perspired by night.” My goodness, the writer who came up with that should have been carried out of the room on the shoulder of his or her peers.

For years I assumed that Orrie Hitt was a “house name” as it seemed unlikely that any writer could be that prolific. Few writers put their real names on Beacon or Midwood paperbacks. Michael Avallone was one exception. Mike came up with the best soft porn title THE CUNNING LINGUIST but he did use his Troy Conway name for that one.

So years ago I was surprised to learn that Orrie Hitt was a real person

Other stuff on Hitt here and especially here by a blogger who says he is a “Hitt man.”

You get the pic, dig on the Hitt.

I’ve heard mixed things about Orrie Hitt.  Gil Fox, talking to Lynn Munroe, said: “Orrie Hitt wrote absolute drivel! Have you ever tried to read an Orrie Hitt book?”  Hmm…Gil Fox wrote as Paul Russo, Kimberly Kemp, and Dallas Mayo, and some of them aren’t all that good, and some are pretty good.  Any prolific writer is bound to be a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly — true for Earl Stanely Gardner, Issac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Barry Malzberg, and Lawrence Block.

Hitt wrote for just about every sleaze paperback publisher — Beacon, Softcover, Newsstand, Kozy, Midwood, Boudoir, Saber, Novel, Chafriot, Oracle, and I think he did a couple for Nightstand.  Most seem to be for Beacon and Kozy. He used the pennames Kay Addams an Nicky Weaver, yet preferred his own name on the covers, without an agent, typing away at home and sending his stuff out, starting out at $250 a book in the mid-50s (about $2000 in then-time money).  I guess he didn’t have any fear of the FBI coming after him — “Orrie Hitt” sounds like a pen name, like Saber Books’ “A. Bunch” or Cornith’s “A. Schole.”

The Promoter came in the mail today.I have a few others (see below).   Glancing through them, Hitt has a hardboiled voice wth snappy dialogue and shame dames in trouble.  The men tend to be blue collar workers, sleaze masters, cheating husbands, with come cheating wives, hookers, and lesbians.  Hitt write three or four peeping tom books, perhaps a passion of his?  I will be reading him and adding him to this blog soon.

I got The Cheaters for the Rader cover alone.  Seems to be about a hardboiled bartender and this married woman…

And how could books with these titles and covers be ignored?

Recursive Novels About Writing Sleazecore

I recently came across the term “sleazecore” and I like it.

I have obtained copies of two novels that are recursive of the vintage sleazsecore writing career:

Dresner wrote as Don Holliday, John Dexter, and Andrew Shaw, but mostly Holiday, before selling this novel and heading to Hollywood as Jack Lemmon’s lead writer.  Westlake wrote as the second Andrew Shaw, Alan Marshall, and Sheldon Lord now and then (toss in a Dexter or two), and then flowed into his career as a mystery and crime writer.

Both novels draw on their experieces working for/with Scott Meredith and writing for Nightstand/Greenleaf.

Well, at least these guys got something mainstream out of those many hard (no pun) hours at the typewriters.

There are some memoirs/autobios out there too, such as Victor Banis’ wonderful Spine Intanct, Some Creases (about leading the gay pulp era with Greenleaf, and dealing with the feds and prosecution); Charles’ Neutzel’s Pocketbook Writer (about the Los Angeles-based sleazecore industry);  and Linda deBruiel’s The Girl Who Writes Dirty Books (about the some 300 she wrote, for Greenleaf, Leisure, Dorchester, and others).

I would probably toss in Barry Malzberg’s The Spread as well, a novel about a sleaze tabloid publisher cracking up, because the basis is the sleaze publishing industry in general, and Malzberg’s short stint as editor for low-tier men’s magazine, Escapade, and his early Mel Johnson stories for Knave and others.

There are probably others I have not seen yet.

Online, of course, there is Earl Kemp’s e-journal/memoir, el.