The Big Slap in the Big Sleep

To continie the debate of Harlequin’s politically correct censoring and altering of reprints of their old books, and the above-board objection from readers, I wonder how Harlequins’ bright and culture-savvy editors would have “changed” Chandler’s The Big Sleep if they got their dainty little hands on the text…

Surely they would not use the above cover art from the 1950 Pocket Books edition.  As you can see, Philip Marlowe is abound to backhand a pensive blonde — is she staring at his digits in fear or waited excitement?  Does the famous private eye need domestic violence and anger management counseling?

On the back cover, in large red letters, is:

I SLAPPED

HER HARD

“Come on,” I said brightly. “Let’s be nice. Let’s get dressed.”

Before anyone claims I condone violence aganst women in fiction, I do not…but the point of contention here is: these PC editors have no sense of the history of noir, and the elements that make up the vintage books from the 1940s-60s.  Sure, they were sexist, mysoginistic, brutal, crass, caddy, heel-bound, with women’s sexuality often the cause for a man’s downfall — but that was the point. That’s part of the genre.

Changing such things is offensive to the genre’s roots, and to assume readers would be appalled or shocked is just plain stupid.  A disclaimer or foreword would have worked, as wel as being informative concerning the views of women some men had in books, or at least their characters did.  Just because  Marlowe feels the need to slap a dame now and then for her own good doesn’t mean Raymond Chandler did this in real life.  He was writing to the specs of his hero and the genre.

I suspect, however, that the day may come when a politicaly correct version of The Big Sleep — and any other books with offensive terms, such as the workls of Joseh Conrad, Hemingway, Faulkner and even Nancy Drew — will be “toned down” for modern day sensitivity.

 

Wait…what if the book has a woman slapping a man?  Does that need to be changed in some eyes, or is that “culturally acceptable”?

The Spread by Barry Malzberg (Belmont Tower, 1971)

One of Malzberg’s least known books, it has had three editions: this 1971 Belmont Tower edition, a 1977 edition with an art cover, and a 1980 “price breaker” plain cover edtion from Leisure Books.

A note on publisher history: Belmont was once an independent paperback house that specialized in faux sexology studies and popular culture, as well as second rate science-fiction and mysteries. They merged what was left of Midwood (Tower Publications) and became Belmont Tower, then later merged with Lancer Books and formed an inprint, leisure Books — not the same Leisure imprint from Greenleaf/Cornith.  Lesiure still exists today as Dorchester Publishing (which published a number of curious books by Linda DuBrieul), which supposedly still has the rights to all these old books, Lesire mainly publishers a popular horror line, romances, thrillers and westerns now.

The Spread is pure black comedy, and a nasty criticism of the sleaze rag era of the 60s-70s, the other half of the biz that went along with the books: nudie mags and newspapers under the guise of adults news and entertainment…

Saber Books – Sex Life of a Cop – Sanford Aday

This nifty little Saber Books novel, Sex Life of a Cop, was instrument in putting its publisher, Sanford Aday, in hot water and almost behind bars.

Aday was an unsuccessful novelist — out of his ten written manuscripts (housed in the special collections at Cal State, Fresno, only 2 were published. Part of it was his books were too racy for the mainstream,.  Frustrated, he started his own press, with three imprints: Vega, Saber, and Fabian.  These books often pushed the enveloped when it came to incest, homosexuality, and detailed sex acts.  As such, the cops and goveerment were after him for obscenity.

He  vigorously fought against censorship. He faced several charges in Hawaii, Arizona and Fresno. Then, as a jab to the local cops, he published Sex Life of a Cop, by an alleged former cop, publicizing the book as being a true account of how cops are crooked and take liberties with the law and sex.

Well, you don’t do that without pissing off the powers that be, so they really went after him. In the 50s-60s, the First Amendment and freedom of opinion/expression did not exist when it came to the law guys — after all, Jim Morrison was arrested on stage in New Haven when he made fun of the cop who maced him backstage.   Lenny Bruce would get arrested when he made fun of the cops in the clubs where he he did his act.

Saber and the other imprints mostly seemed to publish unknown pen names. They did publish one Orrie Hitt, Love Princess, and one by John B. Thompson, Hard Way.

He was eventually tried and convicted along with associate Wallace de Ortega Maxey for shipping an obscene book into Michigan in 1963. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison and fined $25,000.

The conviction was eventually overturned.

Sex Life of a Cop by Oscar Peck was the only book of seven deemed obscene by the jury.

Other Saber Books —

Affairs of Gloria by Victor Jay (Victor Banis) Brandon House 806

Victor Jay was/is Victor Banis, better known for his gay titles such as The Why Not and The Gay Haunt, and his involvement with the boom of gay pulp paperbacks in the mid-60s, with Greenleaf/Cornith, where he published as J.X. Williams and John Dexter, and later Chris Davidson…he a

But his fist novel was somewhat hetero, The Affairs of Gloria, published by Brandon House, and part of the resaon for his indictment, along with Brandon House publisher Milt Luro, in Los Angeles by the Postal Inspector and Justice Department.

Banis talks about the legal problems in his great memoir, Spine Instact, Some Creases (reprinted by one of my publishers, Borgo Press); he also explains that he wrte Gloria after reading a handful of sleaze.  Gloria doe shave lesbian action.  He says he was paid either $500 or700 for this novel, which as the norm back then — keep in mind, in then-time cash that was $5-7,000.

With The Why Not, he convinced Earl Kemp and Greeleaf that there was a market for gay male books, just as there was a market for lesbiana and straight sex.  The Why Not was a huge bestseller, and Greenleaf went full force into the gay market, followed by Suree, PEC, and others.

He also assembled a group of young men to produce en masse gay novels for Greenleaf, taking a cut and making a modest furtune similar to the way Lawrnce Block and Hal Dresner farmed out work to ghost writers, paying them $500-800 and keeping the reest (usually $200-300, not bad for doing no work).

He wrote one book for Marice Girodas’ New York version of Olympia Press, The Gay Haunt,but seems ol’ maurice ripped him off, not reporting actual sales for royalties (he got a $1500 advance and maybe a few hundred bucks in roys, expecting thousands since Olympia’s first print run was 50K and went through several editions after.)

Banis is still alive, but not really writing anymore from what I can tell, and has had Borgo and some ebook places reprint his old work.

Another maker of sleaze paperback history, and caught up in the battle against censorship in the 1960s. But more, he helped pave the way for modern gay publishing, proving there were more queers in the reading public than the publishers realized back then (Iafter all, lesbian novels were really marketed for men).