Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

GUEST THE REASON

*gulp* She's grown in the last few years. And unfortunately I've grown in the last few seconds.

This cover for the 1965 sleaze novel Overnight Guest features art from Victor Olson depicting an actual scene from the story, except in the text the woman in question is face up and topless. It’s a good illustration, notable for the fact that it wasn’t painted by Paul Rader, who you’d be forgiven for thinking painted every cover for Midwood Books. As for Ludwell Hughes’ story, it’s the tale of a middle-aged man who becomes obsessed with two girls aged seventeen and nineteen, and pursues them relentlessly despite dire and multiplying consequences. This tale isn’t one where main character Richard Pell’s behavior is thought to be acceptable for the period. Pell knows himself to be a predator, and Hughes writes in zero excuses for his behavior. That’s pretty progressive for the era. Unfortunately, the book also takes a wrenching turn into evil lesbian tropes—not unusual in a Midwood paperback. Even so, Overnight Guest was a surprise in terms of theme and quality.

Midwood, Ludwell Hughes, Victor Olson, cover art, literature, lgbt

SATISFACTION NON-STOP

Shame? That's for small minds. I feel perfectly lovely about everything I do.

Above: more from Paul Rader, who, if we were ranking paperback artists (which we don’t), would certainly be in the top five (we just did). This effort for Bart Matty’s Next Stop, Shame is signed with a single R, and is high quality, as always. It came in 1966.

Midwood, Bart Matty, Paul Rader, cover art, literature

WEATHER THE STORM

Rainy with a chance of murderous ex-lovers.

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.

Midwood, Russell Trainer, Paul Rader, cover art, literature, lgbt

THE HEAT OF DESIRE

Wanted by everyone, loved by none.

With George McGee’s 1961 novel Desire Under the Sun we were hoping for a hot and heavy set-in-Mexico sleazer with possibly a little gunplay. We didn’t get that, exactly. It mostly has to do with a gold mine in an unnamed state in the western U.S., and one man’s attempt to steal a fortune from another. The man who owns the mine is crazy and at one point even chains up his poor wife Lupe and makes her a gold digging slave. She’s the cover figure in Paul Rader’s art, but in the story she’s not a vampy mama. But this is Rader we’re talking about. All his women were vamps, none more so than this one who’s going to have a very interesting a-shaped tan on her torso.

Lupe is facing a terrible future of working to exhaustion in the mine, then being shot and buried. Unless of course her husband dies somehow. Then the mine and everything in it is hers. Enter an ambitious hunter with dreams of getting rich. He’ll consider rescuing Lupe—at a price. There’s also a repressed incel who wants Lupe for himself—at a price. And there’s a family of hungry mountain lions watching all this, planning a human repast. It sounds weird, we know, but the story isn’t bad. It’s just limply written. But the Rader cover, all on its own, makes Desire Under the Sun a little nugget of gold. It’s another treasured addition to our collection.

Midwood, George McGee, Paul Rader, cover art, literature

HER SPECIAL NEEDS

I wouldn't say I'm one of the girls, so much as one of those girls.

Paul Rader was tapped by Midwood books so often he like a house artist. Paperbacks with very nice Rader covers can get expensive, but not in this case. We got lucky and found Richard Mezatesta’s 1963 sleaze tale One of the Girls for twelve bucks. It deals with the lovely Barbara Sellers, nineteen and horny as hell in New York City, paired up with a jealous, violent lover, but who wants to find a worthwhile replacement and expand her social horizons. Instead, an eely smooth pimp first gives Barbara some serious bedwork, then turns her out for rich customers.

As always with the call girl sub-genre of sleaze, the lead’s rationale for turning to prostitution is unconvincing, but it isn’t the point anyway. The point is titillation, and Mezatesta is pretty good on that front. Barbara satisfies numerous clients, wrestles with feelings of love for one man, and takes the requisite journey into self-loathing, yet finds quitting the sex-for-pay life difficult. Will she be a prostitute forever? Will she get married and live happily ever after? A gamut of endings are always in play in these novels, which means you can never guess until the final chapter. In all, this particular effort was pretty good.

Midwood, Richard Mezatesta, Paul Rader, cover art, literature

WILLING AND ABLE

Well? Don't just stand there staring. Undo something!

1960’s So Willing is credited to Sheldon Lord and Alan Marshall, but they were pseudonyms used by Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake. According to Block, the two wrote this, their second collaboration as Lord and Marshall, by trading chapters through the mail. They would occasionally try to trip each other up with unexpected plot twists, and we can only imagine it must have been a hell of a lot of fun. They tell the tongue-in-cheek tale of a seventeen-year old upstate New York horndog named Vince who’s so successful with girls he decides for variety to hunt up a virgin. He fails a couple of times, ends up running away to New York City with a nineteen-year old married nymphomaniac (their term, not ours), and eventually hooks up with an heiress. Good sleaze novels are diamonds in the rough. You have to dig through a lot of filth to find one. So Willing is better than average because it’s so obviously a lark, but even with Westlake and Block behind the typewriter it’s no gem. We think erotica is the most challenging of all genres for writers. The cover art on this Midwood edition is nice, but uncredited. 

Midwood, Sheldon Lord, Lawrence Block, Alan Marshall, Donald E. Westlake, cover art, literature

NUMBERS GAME

Math isn't my major, but I bet we have dozens of possible combinations—maybe even a hundred if Biff and Daphne show up.

Above: a cover painted by Paul Rader for Max Collier’s novel The Swap Set, from Midwood books, 1965. Sexual swapping was a huge theme in mid-century pop literature, so of course we have a substantial amount of these in the website. You can see a couple of our favorites here and here, and an entire collection here. 

Midwood, Max Collier, cover art, literature

SCANDALOUS BEHAVIOR

Sleaze with cheese and Mayo.


The 1962 Midwood Books sexploitation novel Scandal was written by Dallas Mayo, aka Gilbert Fox, and has uncredited cover art. Some of Midwood’s offerings were tamer than others. Scandal falls on the mild side, with a story set in the fictive burg of Sedgemoor, where a set of local bros are about to throw a big stag party around the same time a Hollywood producer rolls anonymously through scouting for a possible movie location. The tale is told round robin style, with a name mentioned at the end of each chapter preceding the next chapter told from that person’s point of view. In this way Mayo keeps cycling through about eight characters. By the end, the Hollywood producer loves one of the stag party strippers, another stripper finds lesbian love, a married couple rekindle their sex life, and so forth. It’s cheesy stuff, but Scandal is interesting for the social attitudes on display, even it isn’t very hot. Get extra Mayo here. 

Midwood, Dallas Mayo, Gilbert Fox, cover art, literature, lgbt

CAN’T TALK, HANDS FULL

Actually, darling, the moment you left I starting having this tremendous stiffness in my lower body.

Another day, another ripe Midwood cover. The art on these are always like visual punchlines, which is why people love them so much. This particular effort is from Victor Olson, who painted covers for many men’s magazines, including Saga, Stag, Male and others. Laura Duchamp was a pen name used by author Sally Singer, one of the few sleaze writers who was actually female. She was also prolific as March Hastings. Goodbye, Darling appeared in 1964.

Midwood, Victor Olson, March Hastings, Laura Duchamp, Sally Singer, cover art, literature
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1919—Luxemburg and Liebknecht Are Killed

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.

1967—Summer of Love Begins

The Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with between 20,000 to 30,000 people in attendance, their purpose being to promote their ideals of personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological preservation, and higher consciousness. The event is considered the beginning of the famed counterculture Summer of Love.

1968—Cash Performs at Folsom Prison

Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison in Folson, California, where he records a live album that includes a version of his 1955 hit “Folsom Prison Blues.” Cash had always been interested in performing at a prison, but was unable to until personnel changes at his record company brought in people who were amenable to the idea. The Folsom album was Cash’s biggest commercial success for years, reaching number 1 on the country music charts.

2004—Harold Shipman Found Hanged

British serial killer Harold Shipman is found dead in his prison cell, after hanging himself with a bedsheet. Shipman, a former doctor who preyed on his patients, was one of the most prolific serial killers in history, with two-hundred and eighteen murders positively attributed to him, and another two-hundred of which he is suspected.

1960—Nevil Shute Dies

English novelist Nevil Shute, who wrote the books A Town Like Alice and The Pied Piper, dies in Melbourne, Australia at age sixty-one. Seven of his novels were adapted to film, but his most famous was the cautionary post-nuclear war classic On the Beach.

1967—First Cryonics Patient Frozen

Dr. James Bedford, a University of California psychology professor, becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation. Bedford had kidney cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and was untreatable. His body was maintained for years by his family before being moved to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona.

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LOVING DIFFERENTLY

Any part of a woman's body can be an erogenous zone. You just need to have skills.

EATING OUR FILLE

Uncredited 1961 cover art for Michel Morphy's novel La fille de Mignon, which was originally published in 1948.

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