Diary of a Dyke by Don Elliott aka Robert Silverberg (Pleasure Reader, 1967)

I really wonder if Robert Silverberg penned this one for a couple of reasons: the publication date is 1967 and he has written that he stopped writing these books around 1965, although it is possible the manuscript sat around at Greenleaf for a year or two (half a dozen came out in 1966); and it does not jive with Silverberg/Elliott’s sytle, which always had a dark side…this book is light and airy and often funny.

It is the diary of a woman who has jsut turned 32 and is bored with lesbian sex. She engaged in a six girl orgy and yawned. She has been with men before, so she is really bu but prefers girls…until she sleeps with a VP at her work, Tom, and she her interest in sex is rekindled…maybe she will go straight, as many lesbian novels at the time had the characters do,

Around the same time, Lawrence Block wrote three diary-like lesbian novels as Jill Emerson…one, I Am Crious Thirty, is about a woan turning from 29 to 30 and wondering about her sexuality…in fact these two books are quite similar.

Silverberg claims that no other writer used the Don Elliott name, and only one, Carnal Counselor, was frmed out to a ghostwriter when he could not make a deadine.

Either way, a fun read.

Honey Child – Greg Hamilton – Midwood Books (1965)

The yummy Paul Rader GGA and cover copy makes you think this is a Lolita type story, and Midwood certainly never shied away from the sexcapades of teen wantons…but Robin, the heroine, is a 19-year-old college student; she is hardly a nymphet although she acts like she is twelve when it comses to maturity and the games she plays.

Not all that impressive. I need to read more Greg Hamilton, one of the pen names used by Ron Singer, the brother of Sally Singer, aka March Hastings, lesbiana author gallant.  Apparantly, Midwood’s Harry Shorten had set up a small writing office in the Village that various people used as a manuscript grindhouse, so says Gil Fox in an interview with Lynn Munroe:

I also wrote some books for one of the Midwood writers, Ron Singer. They had an office set up at Christopher and Hudson in the Village, with typewriters, and you could go in there and write for money.

Ah, the good ol’ vintage days of analog pulp writing. A simpler time? What would they have done if they had iPads and laptops?

Got Book? We Like Book

Is there a vintage book or author you think we should discuss/review on this website?  Are you a publisher or have you had published a novel that has a vintage feel, pays homage to the style and subetmatter of the 1940s-70s?  Feel free to send them along. We will mention your name and thank you in the post if you like.

Send to:

Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books

C/o M. Hemmingson

PO Box 1284

Lemon Grove, CA 91946

Prime Sucker – Harry Whittington – (Giant Books, 1954; Beacon Books, 1960)

A subruban wife-swapping novel from Whittington, and a pretty good one at that.  While nothing new is in the story, Whittington does a fine job delving into the psychology of why these bored suburbanites to commit the sin of “coveting thy neighbor’s ass.” The first sentence tells it all:

Hank sat at the table and wanted George’s wife.

Originally published as a Giant Double with Idabel Williams’ The Hussy n 1954, and then as a 1960 Beacon.

Some Cool Covers for Your Peepers to Gaze On

Okay okay I know I have let this blog lapse for months, even though site hits have been on the increase at 1-2,000 a day, and I thank every one who comes here and reads the entries, even if you have come here with search engine terms like “vintage hairy pussy,” “underage Tijuana prostitutes,” “incest beastiality” and “hardcore anal” among others.

So…the birth of a child, the death of a parent, the roller coaster of my wriing career, traveling back and forth from Mexico to Los Angeles to San Diego to New York, livig out of suitcases since summer 2010, bouts of depression, two weeks in the hospital, trying to start a new business and finishing some overdue books while starting new ones all helped me to keep away, but that does not mean I stopped reading some nifty vintage paperbacks!

Here are some covers of books I would love to get my hands on…enjoy!

 

Nothing More Than Murder

Jim Thompson’s third novel znd first cri e noir, published in 1954 by Harper and Row and then in paperback by Dell, before he started writing mainly for Lion Books.

Narrated by Joe Wilmot, he is not as cold blooded as later narrators, yt he has no moral compass when it comes to murder. He and his older wife run a small down movie theater. Theirs is a loveless marriage., especially when she catches him smooching with the honely teen employee, Carol.

His wife wanys out, and there is insurance money to be had. They hire a woman the same size as her, kill her, set the house on fire so the body is charred.  She takes off and waits for the insurance money. Meanwhile, Joe uis being blackmailed by two men who suspect he killed his wife for the money, Carol is in on it and will mess it up, and an insurance investigator is hounding him in a friendly way.

What can I say? Great read, but what Thompson is not?