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
A five part YouTube posting of Robert Silverberg and Lawrence Block at a bookstore in Belmont, California, May 24, 2011, talking about their sex novel writing days, and signing copies of the new edition of Campus Tramp and Gang Girl/Sex Bum.
https://vintagesleazepaperbacks.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php
Word has it that Harlan Ellison has agreed to reprint his Paul Merchant Nightstand Sex Gang with a new title, Pulling a Train, containing new stories. The publisher is the new Kicks Books, from underground music zine Kicks Magazine, also a vintage record label, Norton Records, that reissues and produces new groovy, 50s-style retro bachelor pad garage tunes and co-run by vintage-collector, ex-Cramps drummer, Miriam Linna.
Kicks is also publishing a collection of “science fiction” poetry by Sun Ra. How cool is that? The line has a vintage look based on Signet and Avon books of the salad days.
This is a curious and surprising re-issue on many levels…Ellison has said he would never republish it, had in the past denied it…maybe the upswing in vintage reprints by many old pals from the heydays changed his mind…one would surmise he would have gone with Subterranean or Stark House or even Hard Case rather than a new venture, or maybe a new venture is the way to go.
Either way, we are looking forward to this one.
This is, perhaps, the best of all the Silverberg Don Elliotts we have read so far, perhaps because its subject matter is of great interest, and close to home (or fantasy) of the author.
Michael Storm is a whirlwind success of a first novelist, stuck in the second novel hell — can he produce a wonderful follow-up or is he but a one-hit-wonder?
In his late 20s, he was working a PR man who had a way with words, a copy wizard, and while he was capable of making a good living doing that, he yearned for more, and two women in his life knew it; they in fact urged him to write a novel, one a girl at the office, Eileen, whose gives her virginity to him, and one a wanton but wealthy bi-sexual lawyer, who offers to be his patron, or sugar momma, giving him what money he needs so he can quit working and focus on writing his novel. (As for the reality of that, these women are really out there, we here have experienced that first-hand.)
He writes an enormous, 323,000-word tome on Madison Avenue and the American Dream, accepted based on a partial. The publisher knows this will be heralded as an American classic of modern times, and it is: great reviews, great sales, movie rights to Hollywood, all kinds of foreign rights sales — Storm makes $200,000 in the first year, quite a chunk of change for the early 1960s, and if invested right, he could live comfortably foe the rest of his life…he need not ever write another word again…but he wants to, he wants a second, third, more novels…but does he have them inside him? Can he acquire, as the cover copy states, “a sin career”?
He finds many women are eager to sleep with a famous author…and when he goes out to Los Angeles to work on the treatment for a film to his book, working on a studio lot, he finds an endless supply of would be actresses and secretaries and PAs to have sex with, so much that h soon becomes bored for th lack of the chase and challenge.
Back in New York, he befriends Harris Merrill, an author ten years his senior who had one smash-hit novel, a classic, and never wrote again (like a female version of Harper Lee); instead, in his 10-room Park Avenue abode, he dives into LSD, peyote, shrooms, and having wild sex orgies on the drugs. Storm tries it and fears becoming just like Merrill. We cannot help but wonder if Merrill is loosely based on Philip K. Dick…(Note here, Silverberg has people waiting 3-4 hours at a psiocybin party to take effect, when the effect of that drug really takes 30-60 minutes to start…and he has Storm throw up after taking them, when vomitting is more a part of peyote, not psiolocybin.)
After Merrill’s OD and death, the darkness inspired Storm to writ his second novel, also a masterpiece.
But what of love? A wife? Can a man have the whole world and be alone? Storm finds out no, that it all is meaningless until he has someone to share it with.
The ins ans outs of the publishing business makes for an interesting read, the giant blockbuster of a novel with fortune and fame a fantasy for the young Silverberg, unlike the hustling life of a paperback hack found in Thirst for Love as David Challon.
This one should get a reprint.
J.X. Williams was the original pen name for John Jakes, and then later used as a house name by many, from Harry Whittington to George Smith and David Case.
And editor Earl Kemp…Kemp, when not running the Cornith/Greenleaf imprints, wrote a few titles himself, such as this one (with its nifty Robert Bonfils cover) and Seance Sinners (which we have yet to find).
Editors as writers is always tricky — are they as good behind the typewriter as they are with the red pen? There are some former editors who have proven themselves good writers: E.L. Doctorow (used to edit Dial Press), Gordon Lish (Knopf). Harlan Ellison (Nightstand/Rogue/Regency) come to mind…
Kemp is cocky about his role in paperback sleaze and First Amendment cases.
So is this just as good as any Silverberg, Block, Westlake, Knoles, James? No, but it is a good read with a swampy, hot atmosphere. The back cover copy:
SWAMP OF SHAME! Harold Weyman, an ambitious young executive, is assigned an almost impossible task . . . he has to locate Reginald Carminada, the fabulously wealthy sugar heir who has been missing for some time. His new assignment tears him from the arms of Margo, his fiery redhead who likes to sunbathe in the nude [obviously the cover’s inspiration] . . . and tosses him headlong into a world of wild improbability. First he encounters the sinister Hache, the serpentine wanton who cavorts through degradation with Harold in the seclusion of a motel room. Then the lovely young blonde, Rosiemae . . . whose innocence is rapidly sacrificed before the altar of shame, while her pets, the beasts of the swamp, shout their guttural encouragements. Finally, Harold finds himself caught by the swirl of the most ribald voodoo ritual that ever degraded the bayou as the fires of hell flicker toward the gloating moon and the tortures pierce the night like the cruel snap of a whip or the hiss of a devil snake . . .
Harold’s journey from New Orleans to the swampy southern marshlands, where people have old ‘gators for pets, his search for the missing millionaire, is an obvious nod toward Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a decade before Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (and Robert Parker did one with his Spencer novels). His journey down the river with Roisemae reflects Marlowe’s journey through the heart of the African Congo, full of strange encounters along the way, like Old Cuddles, a grandpappy of alligators, that Rosiemae has known all her life — she knows Old Cuddles won’t eat her, he only likes to eat dogs.
Kemp, being a southern boy, writes his southern characters with flair and authenticity.
There are the sounds of distant drums (a funny nod to Block/Shaw) that bring him to a voodoo ritual where he finds the man. “Reginald Carminada, I prsume?” says Harold, a nod to Kipling.
Sex? There’s plenty of sex in Harold’s adventure into the Swamp of Shame, the Sin Swamp, among the Swamp Lusters, with all the cautious language we expect from a Cornith — in fact, there is so much use of “Now! Now” and “faster! faster!” that it gives credence that Kemp added these things into the manuscripts of other writers, because they all seem to cookie-cutter. Silbverberg has said something about Kemp writing in extra stuff to the books.
A fun read. If you come across a copy, get it.
An autograph from Kemp:
A well-written, page-turning coming-of-age novel from Donald E. Westlake, Lust Kicks tells the tale of two 17-year-old buddies, Mike and Frank, from Ohio, who decide to take off on a summer adventure before returning to high school in their senior year. Knowing their parents would not approve, they slip away in the night, a few hundred bucks between them.
Their three week road trip, taking buses and hitchhiking, goes from Ohio down to Mexico. They are both virgins on the outset, but both soon lose their cherries to older women — lonely women, needful women, and then they share a cheap whore, and it’s not the same.
There are plenty of women for them to gain experience. Then they save the life of a young heiress who is grateful and takes them to her mansion, where they meet Katherine, a pretty young maid who has dreams of Hollywood.
Mike falls for Katherine, and agrees to take her to Los Angeles. She’s full of all the usual delusions:
Mike: “What makes you so sure you’ll make it out in Hollywood?”
Katherine got up and poured herself another drink. “I’ll make out all right. There are two ways to make it. I know. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on about the movies and Hollywood. If a girl has talent, real talent, she has to keep plugging away until she makes it. And even then she has to entertain at least a few men on her back. The other way is to start out flat on your back and love your way to stardom. What’s the difference if it’s only a couple of men or a lot of men?”
“But if you can’t act what good is it?”
“I don’t want to be an actress,” she said, her eyes closed as visions of mink and ermine raced through her mind. “I want to e a star. There’s a world of difference between the two. I don’t care if I never make a picture. All I want is the publicity and the money. I want to be able to pick up a newspaper and see my name there. And I don’t care how it gets there.” (p. 143)
Or: bad publicity is better than no publicity; as Burt Reynolds once put it: “I 
don’t care what you say about me, just say it and spell my name right.”
How many times have we at this blog heard the very same, or close to it, thing from the mouths of those many who head west and later wind up dancing or making videos in a certain field…
Then again, such tactics have worked for the fame-seeking…Courtney Love, Sharon Stone, Marilyn Monroe…
Katherine is vixen and good at manipulation; she almost breaks the friends up as she plays hard to get with Mike but immediately sleeps with Frank.
Frank takes her to Hollywood and Mike goes down to Mexico where he meets Carlita, a 17-year-old virgin who feels it is time for her to know a man; and in bed, Mike–three weeks ago a virgin himself–teaches the girl all he has learned on his road trip. He comes full circle, no longer a boy, but a man of the world…
There’s more, but you get the gist. Nothing original here, the same ol’ situations in any coming-of-age road book, but the way Westlake handles it is smooth and delightful. You can really tell that, by 1963, Westlake was getting his plotting and dialogue chops down better than his books from 1958-61 for Midwood and Nightstand.
A great little read if you can find it.
While William Hamling’s Greenleaf Publishing was putting out Imagination SF, Rouge Magazine, and Nightstand Books, there was also the Regency imprint, a second-tier paperback line that published crime, literary, and non-fiction books acquired by Harlan Ellison, who was also editing Rogue and Nightstand. Ellison published, with Regency, the first editions of Gentleman Junkie and Memos from Purgatory.
Playing sociologist or journalist, or even ethnographer, Ellison decided to join an actual Brooklyn street gang and write about that life rather than rely on news items and imagination as other juvie gang writers did. he joined the barons for ten weeks, resulting in the novel Web of the City (aka Rumble), the collections The Deadly Streets and The Juvies, and one half of Memos from Purgatory, which also became an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Hour, starring James Caan as Ellison, sort of, and Walter Koenig as the gang prez.
George Edgar Sluser, in Unrepntant Harelquin: Harlan Ellison, a Borgo monograph from the 70s, contends this book is one of Ellison’s weakest, when still figuring out his non-fiction voice, though does note its sociological merits. Mainly, it is even because the two parts do not exactly make this a whole book but a book of two long essays.
The second part is an extended essay from The Village Voice about Ellison’s arrest and time in The Tombs, New York City’s jail, for being in possession of items from his gang research: a .22 zip gun and brass knuckles, etc. It is not only a scathing critique of the law, the cops, and the system, but works as an examination of cause and effect: how past research has continued negative effects.
The most interesting aspect, in terms of the this blog, is its original publication by William Hamling as the two were also putting out the Nightstand books.
There are have been several reprinting of Memos:
The narrator, Dave Owen, is a bit of a criminal in Thailand — he runs a bar and a brothel, does some drug and weapons smuggling on the side, and the local police have hinted that while they know what he is up to, and they appreciate the money his business generates for their economy, if he keeps it up, he will find himself in prison and then deported.
Dave likes where he is and what he does so decides to play it straight for a while — one way is to invest in a friend’s low budget movie that could have a good ROI: the project is called Rivers of Lust and can be made for $75,000 and perhaps bring in millions.
Dave can lose his investment, he thinks this swill be fun and will occupy his time until the hat of the police simmers down. The highs and lows, many lows, of making low budget films has an authenticity to it, from a bad script to bad acting and sexual shenanigans off set.
This is a fine little novel that could’ve easily found a home at Gold Medal, Dell, Ace, Pocket, any other place than Nightstand, but William Knoles was one of Scott Meredith’s black box writers and content to supply Cornith with many excellent gems, as long as the checks were steady.
Jade Brothel was reprinted in 1973 as To Kiss a Dragon with the pen name Carter Allen attached; that edition as a few F-bombs and racier sex scenes tossed in, fitting for the decade and more freedom in publishing.
Girls on the Prowl (later, The Wantons) opens with a bang– pun intended. A cab driver picks up a sultry-looking blonde; he’s in 40s, married, and it pains him he could never have a woman likes this. She tells him to drive into Central Park and starts to undress in back; she tells him to stop and asks if he likes her breasts; then she invites him to join her in back for sex. He obliges.
The woman is Saundra Stone, hailing from Ohio where she went to Clifton College.nd works at a pretentious literary quarterly, Agony Magazine (pergaos a take on The Paris Review?) She lives on West 73rd Street in a four-bedroom apartment that goes for a pricey $210/month (this is the early 60s). She has two roommates: Marilyn and Joan. Marilyn is waiting for her, asks her how the fast anonymous sex was. Seems it was Marilyn’s idea, something she likes to do, picking up strangers for quickies and one-nighters. Saundra says it was exciting and fun.
Marilyn is an on-the-rise young assistant editor at a Phulcorte Press, which publishes a variety of magazines and books.
The other roommates, Joan McKay, is a lesbian, but they don’t know that; they would appalled to know that while Joan is just as promiscuous as they are, she sleeps around with women she finds in the Greenwich Village gay bars.
Lynne Munroe has a good summation from his article in el:
Sandy from Clifton College and her two roommates in Greenwich Village. Schwerner. A Sound of Distant Drums. Some great jokes, like a publisher named Phulcorte Press, a night club called Open d’Or, a Chinese restaurant called Haow Naow, a Spanish restaurant called Dolor de Estomago. Harvey Chase’s Agony Magazine is introduced. As Wayne Mullins showed us on one of his excellent Block checklists, two of the characters are anagrams for the author: Cornwall Becke and Lance Brecklow (“Phoney sounding name,” a character says.)
Saundra/Sandy may also be Sandy from The Twisted Ones. Joan, however, does make an appearance in Slum Sinners, which we will discuss next.
Girls on the Prowl is less than a novel than a character study of three sexually free and open women. They do evolve and change: Marilyn finds true love and leaves her career and New York to be with the man of her dreams, and Joan, at the end, fully embraces her llesbian desires, instead of being ashamed of herself and her feelings for the third street.
Again, this Block/Shaw is a bit more sexually explicit than the softcores of the day; the erotic elements are not as subtle and evasive as, say, Silverberg, Westlake and Harry Whittington’s Corniths. It’s not a matter of exact description, but the lewd nature. For instance, Sandy goes to an underground live sex show, which opens with “a Negro and a Puerto Rican girl” going at it n stage, and then they are joined by a young blonde girl that Sandy realizes cannot be older than fourteen, and the man and woman on stage rabish the young lady is a mock rape act. So, here we have not only an illegal public sex act, but a sex show with an underage female…another is the final sex scene, with Joan and a pale woman meeting in the Village, never asking each other’s name, and having intense, kinky lesbian lovin’.
But we understand this pales in comparison with the Jill Emerson 70s novels, The Trouble with Eden, I Am Curious (Thirty) and Sensuous., which we have yet to get to, but will at some nifty point in the future…
Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books 
