This awesome Paul Rader cover for Russell Trainer’s 1963 novel No Way Back made us think we were dealing with another natural disaster story—and you know we love those—but the art deceived us. The book is actually a sleaze tale—maybe the nipples should have clued us in—with only the last fifteen pages set during a storm. It’s about a man who returns from the Vietnam War to find that his wife has gotten involved in an affair with a woman who’s also taken his spot in his real estate business. While it’s filled with titillation, it’s relentlessly anti-gay, with Trainer calling homosexuality depraved, perverted, wicked, and other slanders. It would be interesting to know, considering how hot his love scenes are, whether the moralizing came from his mind or those of Midwood editors. The climax where Trainer’s lesbian turns homicidal is unlikely, at best. Readers might have believed it in 1963, but they wouldn’t now. As we’ve said many times, book and poster art have gotten worse since the mid-century, but culture has gotten better.
Rainy with a chance of murderous ex-lovers.