LOFT EXPECTATIONS

There's nothing quite like a roll in the hay.


You’d think we’d eventually run out of themes in mid-century paperbacks, but the possibilities are seemingly endless. We can add illicit love in the hayloft to the many other time honored subjects exploited by paperback publishers. We’ve already shared several covers along these lines, such as this one, this one, and this one, but today we have an entire set for your enjoyment. Personally, we’ve never had sex in a hayloft—in fact, we’ve never even had the opportunity—but we imagine that once you get past the smelly manure and the scratchy hay and the jittery animals it’s pretty fun. Or maybe not. There are also numerous books, incidentally, that feature characters trysting by outdoor haystacks, but for today we want to stay inside the barn. Thanks to all the original uploaders of these covers.

A suitcase and a sense of adventure will take you anyplace you want to go (and some places you don't).

As noted in the above post, we’ve gotten a trip together for this summer, so we thought we’d inspire ourselves by collecting a set of paperback covers featuring characters with suitcases. Just about anything can happen once you leave the comfy confines of home and we’re hoping several of the scenes depicted here come true for us. See if you can guess which. Hint: not the one above—we already did that last year when we got caught in a monsoonal downpour that shut the airport on the day we were supposed to fly. No, we’re thinking we want something more like the below cover to happen. And actually, that’s a guarantee because the Pulp Intl. girlfriends are coming with us. Anyway, this group of covers serves as a companion set to our hitchhiker collection from last year. Art is by Robert McGinnis, Mitchell Hooks, George Gross, and others.

Cleanliness is next to bawdiness.
Below, a small selection of paperback covers featuring characters getting more from their daily rinse than just a squeaky clean feeling.

Yup. Done gave myself more’n a few painful burns over the years with this trick but I got it down pretty good now.

The cover art by Robert Bonfils makes The Passion Cache look like a western but it’s actually set in the present day, or at least 1968, which is when Don Bellmore, aka George H. White, wrote the book. It deals with two fraternity buddies who go looking for twenty-thousand dollars worth of Spanish gold in the mountains above El Paso, Texas. But this is sleaze fiction, not adventure fiction, so the quest for gold is really secondary to the main character Jud’s quest to do some prospecting between the thighs of his friend’s wife Viola, an Indian girl named Desert Rose, and an eager virgin/tomboy named Sally. He’s successful on all counts, multiple times. Does he eventually end up with the gold? No, but he ends up with Desert Rose, and that’s pretty much what these books are all about. 

My gosh, are those Vivier stilettos you’re wearing? How extraordinary.

Don Bellmore, whose Hot Pants Heiress you see above, was one of many prolific smut authors during the 1960s. He wrote Shame Agent, Sin Dealer, Prey for Rape, The Dyke Department, The Twins’ Initiation, and many more. It all sounds pretty low rent, but you’d be surprised how robust the market is for vintage sleaze. We saw The Twins’ Initiation going for $49.95 on one site. Pretty good for an author that wasn’t even real. Bellmore was one of those names shared by a number of writers, including George H. White, who also wrote as both Jan Hudson and J.X. Williams, though the J.X. pseudonym was also used by John Jakes among others. White/Bellmore also may have filled in as Alan Marshall when Donald E. Westlake wasn’t inhabiting the role. It all gets pretty confusing. But what isn’t confusing is this humorous cover art, featuring a bottomless vixen doing the upside down bicycle exercise and her friend with a shoe fetish. We have some more Bellmore covers below. Enjoy.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.

1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott

In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.

1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire

In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure.

1963—Warren Commission Formed

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission’s conclusions.

Barye Phillips cover art for Street of No Return by David Goodis.
Assorted paperback covers featuring hot rods and race cars.
A collection of red paperback covers from Dutch publisher De Vrije Pers.

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