We had completely forgotten about Fred Ross’s Jackson Mahaffey until we ran across this great cover. We read the book back when we first got into pulp literature. Our version was a Riverside Press hardback, but we wish we’d had this Bantam mass market paperback. Note the stick at crotch level and the masturbatory motion that would be required to whittle it. Also note the unsuspecting lass and the mixing bowl between her legs. As it turns out, though the book is indeed about a man trying to get his stick in a girl’s bowl, it’s also a very funny square peg/round hole story in a broader sense.

Published in 1951, with the paperback appearing a year later, Jackson Mahaffey is set in Prohibition era North Carolina, and is told in first person by the eponymous Jackson, an orphan who has grown up to be a master liar, consummate hustler, and inveterate horndog. When he catches a glimpse of beautiful Molly Burns, he decides he simply must have her, but in order to do so he must appear to be a respectable gentleman. Just a few of the things poor Jackson gives up to woo the girl: cussing, brawling, smoking, cock fighting, and drinking. Pretty tough makeover for a guy who manages the meanest fighting cock on the Rock River and carries brass knuckles and a pistol in his pocket, but he gives Southern gentility a go anyway, even though the subterfuge cannot possibly last.

When he inevitably falls off the wagon, the only way he can think of to get back into Molly’s good graces (and hopefully into her panties) is to run for state senator. It should be an impossible task for a rootless hick like Jackson, but it turns out that everything he’s learned during his years of double dealing and raising hell suddenly work to his advantage. This is politics, after all, and he’s uniquely equipped with malleable morals and lots of friends in low places. Filled with backwoods humor and Jackson’s particular brand of countrified wisdom, this one is well worth a read.

Above is a nice cover for Elick Moll’s suspense novel Night Without Sleep, the story of a playwright whose violent temper and love of drink lead to a serious dilemma—he awakens from a binge with vague memories of a woman screaming, leading him to suspect he may have committed murder. There are three women in his life—his wife, his mistress, and the woman he would like to be his new mistress—and he tracks them down one by one, praying that his suspicions are wrong. A pretty good read, all in all, even if certain elements do resemble Cornell Woolrich’s earlier The Black Angel. We noticed this book mainly because the title was familiar—a film version starred the luscious Linda Darnell, one of our favorite old actresses. You can see a great photo of her here. 1962 on this cover, by the way, with art by uncredited. 

Curt Siodmak’s sci-fi classic Donovan’s Brain, first published in 1942, is a story of scientific experimentation gone terribly wrong: body dies, brain lives, scientist communicates with brain, brain takes control of scientist and makes him do horrible things. You already know this tale because it’s been recycled everywhere from Star Trek to The Man with Two Brains, but the German-born Siodmak’s first swipe at the theme is still tops. Highly recommended. The paperback version you see above appeared from Bantam in 1950 with uncredited, but very effective cover art.