| Vintage Pulp | Jan 15 2022 |
The city is fine. It's the men that are in disrepair.
You may have noticed we're looking at photo covers a bit more lately. Here's one for Winchell Barry's Scarlet City. The art here is interestingly tinted, and the moment of struggle depicted while indifferent people occupy the adjacent room says plenty. We showed you the Beacon Signal cover a couple of years ago, but the book was actually first published in the above form by Intimate Novels in 1953. The line at the bottom, “She pandered to the lusts of evil men,” pretty much sums up the story, as the main character Lora tries to sleep her way to the top. If you want to know more feel free to check here.
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 19 2019 |
That old quote is true. Since I got into politics I've had quite a few fellows in bed and most of them were strange.
In Winchell Barry's Scarlet City ambitious anti-heroine Lora Paton insinuates herself into the inner workings of a big city's political and vice machines by using her own inner workings on various lustful men. Her constant sexual activity leaves her by turns empowered and embittered, depending on how her scheme to get her main man into the governor's mansion is going at any given moment. If she can get him elected, they'll marry and live on the taxpayer's dime happily ever after. But is he playing straight with her? Hint: politicians are generally scum.
Scarlet City is pretty frank stuff from Barry, who was in reality longtime television writer Leo Rifkin. Through various plot covolutions he manages to get Lora in bed with five different men, each a rung on her ladder to the top. The book was originally published in 1953, with this Beacon edition coming in 1960. It was also reprinted in a 1954 issue of Daring magazine, so its mix of easy sex, political chicanery, and strange bedfellows must have done well on newsstands. It's not going to be studied in any creative writing classes, but we'll admit we liked it.
Scarlet City is pretty frank stuff from Barry, who was in reality longtime television writer Leo Rifkin. Through various plot covolutions he manages to get Lora in bed with five different men, each a rung on her ladder to the top. The book was originally published in 1953, with this Beacon edition coming in 1960. It was also reprinted in a 1954 issue of Daring magazine, so its mix of easy sex, political chicanery, and strange bedfellows must have done well on newsstands. It's not going to be studied in any creative writing classes, but we'll admit we liked it.
