TOTALLY DOPE

Some people just can't say no.

Above is an alternate cover for N.R. de Mexico’s classic drug sleaze novel Marijuana Girl, a surprisingly good tale of addiction and redemption we wrote about last year. That edition was from Uni Books and had a photo cover. This Beacon edition has a nice painted cover, which is signed but illegible. Have any idea whose signature this is below? Drop us a line.

N.R. de Mexico, Robert Campbell Bragg, cover art, literature, drugs

Vintage Pulp

August 5 2020

GIRLS JUST JUANA HAVE FUN

Seems naive now, but when I heard it was a recreational drug I thought it would make me spend more time outside.

Amazingly, if you go shopping for a copy of N. R. de Mexico’s, aka Robert Campbell Bragg’s 1951 novel Marijuana Girl, some vendors will try to charge you $200 or more. That’s quite an ask for a flimsy old digest novel, but people must pay it, we guess. It certainly isn’t the cover art of a hapless model that makes the book valuable. Is it the prose? Well, the book was good, in fact far better than we expected. It sets up as a drug scare novel. The main character, Joyce, goes through the full progression—i.e. youthful smalltown rebelliousness leads to a permissive lifestyle leads to the big city leads to drugs leads to harder drugs leads to prostitution and so forth. We didn’t give anything away there—the rear cover provides all that information and more. We’re even told Joyce hangs with jazz musicians (which you understand to mean non-whites) and trades “her very soul” for drugs, so you know where this all goes before you even reach the title page.

But Marijuana Girl also defies conventions of drug scare books. For example, it portrays nearly all the drug users as regular folks well in control of their intake. In fact, the two characters responsible for introducing Joyce to drugs are the same two who work hardest to get her off them. Other easy plot choices are avoided as well, which is rarely the case in 1950s novels with numerous non-white characters. But here’s really why the book is unique—it goes into amazing detail about the process of consuming drugs. De Mexico zooms close during those moments, sharing the proper technique for smoking joints, clinically explaining how to use a needle, and how to pull blood back into the syringe to rinse out every last molecule of heroin. It’s all there. This had to be shocking for 1951 readers, which we suppose is what boosts the book’s value for modern collectors. Still, $200? We don’t think Marijuana Girl, or any paperback, is worth that much, but it’s definitely worth reading.

New York City, Uni Books, N.R. de Mexico, Robert Campbell Bragg, cover art, literature, drugs, prostitution

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 15

1937—H.P. Lovecraft Dies

American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer ever. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as it was eighty years ago.

March 15

2011—Illustrator Michel Gourdon Dies

French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but produced nearly 3,500 covers during his career.

March 14

1964—Ruby Found Guilty of Murder

In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven.

March 13

1925—Scopes Monkey Trial Ends

In Tennessee, the case of Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, involving the prosecution of a school teacher for instructing his students in evolution, ends with a conviction of the teacher and establishment of a new law definitively prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The opposing lawyers in the case, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, both earn lasting fame for their participation in what was a contentious and sensational trial.

March 12

1933—Roosevelt Addresses Nation

Franklin D. Roosevelt uses the medium of radio to address the people of the United States for the first time as President, in a tradition that would become known as his “fireside chats”. These chats were enormously successful from a participation standpoint, with multi-millions tuning in to listen. In total Roosevelt would make thirty broadcasts over the course of eleven years.