Ursula Grant and Other Pseudonyms

I ordered these two Ursula Grant Midwoods because I liked the covers.  She only did a couple stand alone movels and a few doubles, but looking at th style, this is obviously Joan/Julie Ellis writing under this pen name. Odd, as the name is not listed as attahed to her, like Linda Michaels and Jill Monte are.

Ellis’ style is too distinct, easy to recognize, and the themes of the above are classis Joan Ellis: the college hellion and the woman going for the younger lover.

I will review these two down the line…but next: an early Midwood by Fred Martin, Hired Lover, that is obviously Orrie Hitt…

Also found out that Barbara Brooks was a female pen name for William Coons, who penned some Andrew Shaws and Don Hollidays at Nightstand…

Immoral Wife/Henry’s Wife by Gordon Mitchell (Robert Silverberg Midwood Books)

This novel was originally published as Immoral Wife (Midwood 11) and then Henry’s Wife reprinted — keeping the same Paul Rader Cover.

Robert Silverberg only used the Gordon Mitchell pen name once, for this one, and it’s unknown why.  Perhaps because he had not yet established the Loren Beauchamp pen name there, with Love Nest, which was an unnumbered early Midwood.  At the time, Midwood was getting its books from the Scott Meredith Agency and had no idea that Loren Beauchamp and Gordon Mitchell were the same person, or that the same person was also Don Elliott at Nightsand and David Challon/Mark Ryan at Bedstand/Bedtime.

This is more a crime noir/suspense yarn than a sex book — there’s sex, but less so than other Midwoods or Beauchamps/Elliotts; there is more sexual tension, calling to mind a good James M. Cain novel, like Postman Always Rings Twice or Sinful Woman.

The setting is a small New Engalnd town, so small everyone knows everyone’s busienss and phone oprators listen to calls for giossip — any gossipy news is spread fast.  Hollister has returned to the small town after inheriting his parents’ home; he has been living in New York with his wife, Katherine, and their two children.  He met Katherine the day he came back from Korea, while in New York.

All the married women in town are ex-girlfriends of his, or he dated them…except for Jean, who is ten years younger (27) and lives nextdoor, married to Henry, a man twice her age.

Jean has been teasing and flaunting Hollister with her body, un til he can take it no more and cheats on his wife.  They have an affair all summer. Katherine finds out. He tries to call it off with Jean but Jean does not want to it to end — in fact, she wants him to leave his wife, she’ll leave Henry, and they can move to Los Angeles and have babies.  She wants children — he older husband is shooting blanks, and Hollister is obviously virile since he has sired two kids.

Hollister realizes that Jean is a nut-case and wants nothing of her. To get back at him, she claims he raped her, and Hollister becomes persona non grata in the small town community.

Henry finds out the truth: that his wife in an unfaithful floozy.  In front iof Hollister’s eyes, he shoots her with a .22 several times, then kills himself.

This was a good page turner, another worthy of reprinting, and I could see it as a good movie (maybe I will adapt some day). It is far better than some of the disappointing Beauchamps.

Some Midwoods by Loren Beauchamp

Loren Beauchamp was Robert Silverberg’s female pen name at Midwood Books, writing at the same time as working for Nightstand, although neither publisher knew he was doing double-duty, as Silberbob was going through the Scott Meredith Agency with Midwood; his real identity was a secret (he also wrote as David Challon and Mark Ryan  for Bedstand/Bedtime Books, L.T. Woodward and Walter C. Brown for Monarch Books, Lancer Books, and Beacon; and at Nightstand did a few as house names John Dexter and J.X. Williams — a busy mofo!).

Many of these Midwood books were illustrated by Paul Rader, who died in obscurity but is now considered one of the masters of sleaze pop art Americana.

As David Challon —

From Lynn Munroe’s site:

Harry Shorten came from the Midwood section of Brooklyn NY. With his partner, artist Al Fagaly, Shorten made his fortune with a comic strip called THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW. Shorten thought up the ideas and Fagaly would do the drawings. Looking around for somewhere to invest all the money he was making from his cartoon, Shorten decided to become a paperback book publisher. He looked at the success of Beacon Books, a series of slick cheap throwaway melodramas and sexy romances with flashy girlie art covers marketed to men and published by Universal Distributing. Shorten figured he could do the same, and at 505 8th Avenue in Manhattan, in 1957, he started a paperback book line named for his old neighborhood. The first batch of Midwood Books were either THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW paperbacks or unnumbered experimental forays in the Beacon style. By Midwood 7 in 1958, the authors and artists we recognize as Midwood Books were in place. Midwood 7 is by Loren Beauchamp and has a cover by Rudy Nappi, Midwood 8 is by Sheldon Lord and has a cover by Paul Rader. Shorten was getting his early manuscripts from the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, where Meredith’s band of employees and clients were soon churning out a book a month for Nightstand Books, too. And he was getting his cover paintings from the Balcourt Art Service, the same agency that supplied many of the covers for Beacon.