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Review Round-up: Vintage Classics (and Not-So-Classics)

We've just returned from a long weekend in Lyme Regis, our favourite escape. Dinosaurs and literary landmarks! Bakeries on every corner! We spent most of our stay buying delicious foodstuffs and eating them on the terrace (which had a sea view if you stood on the table). Occasionally inclement weather forced us to nap. It was exhausting. To make things worse, the trip was bracketed by train rides to and from London, during which we could only... read. 

Lyme Regis has an amazing bookshop, and after 4? 5? vaguely-annual visits, I think the owner kind of recognises me. At the very least, he sees me walking out with most of his "Pulps" section every year. This year was the perfect sort of bookish travel: go down with a Kindle and an empty bag, come back with a few dozen new treasures. (A future Post-Scripts, I think.)

Anyway, my travel slides aside ("click-click" Here's us at the pub! "click-click"), a long list of short reviews follows:

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920). Before this year, the only Fitzgerald I'd read was The Great Gatsby, and that was high school and I've already forgotten it. Recently, prompted by some book research, I've been plowing through all the Fitzgerald I can find and loving it. Sarcastic, funny, touching, witty, straight-forward language and wonderfully complex eddies under the surface - pretty much made to order for My Taste. Who knew? This Side of Paradise is Fitzgerald's debut which a) bloody hell and b) like the vast proportion of debut novels is b1) a little too much about the author, b2) clearly based on post-event philosophical rendering of the author's own experiences and b3) slightly wanky. That said, back to a) - bloody hell. Astounding book and a fascinating look at an era and class that I don't know anything at all about. An amazing combination with all the Westerns I've been reading lately - hard to think of all this happening in the same country at the same time. 

The Fox by Conrad Williams (2013). A really nice little chapbook from the folks at This is Horror, who, understandably, know their horror. A family go camping and things start to get creepy. There's a long slow build and then the reveal and payoff all hit at the same time - as a mystery, it is a bit clunky. As an atmospheric bit of horror, it is smothering (in a good way). You just know horrible things are happening, pitter-patting around in the background, and the bits of mundane detail only make it worse when it finally kicks off. I'm glad it ends when it does, a bit of a new Scary Story to Read in the Dark, rather than any sort of greater parable. A nice book, and well worth a fiver.

[Seventeen more after the jump!]

Friday Five: Gateway Smut

With one notable exception, we've never actually written about porn on Pornokitsch. Or erotica. Or any other sort of sexually-charged literature. And, all joking aside, this is a huge and diverse genre, and, to an outsider, more than a little intimidating. What's it about? What's good? What are the classics? Where do we start?

Fortunately, we've got Tiffani Angus, here to explain where smut begins...

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I read erotica. I write erotica. But as a young reader, I didn’t jump right in and start with Anais Nin. I built up to it, reading things that didn’t seem like smut. Gateway smut, if you will, where the sex scenes weren’t the most important parts of the book … but those few pages were always the most handled.

The summer I turned thirteen, my best friend and I spent hours lounging around on the couch, scanning through her mom’s stacks of Harlequin paperbacks to find the dirty goods. This was the early ’80s, when the Harlequin status quo of virginal heroine gave way to new imprints that allowed the girl to have ‘done it’ already. Sadly, my friend’s mom didn’t read those, so we were left with vague (and much too short) sex scenes. Still, it was a start, albeit a disappointing one.

No Fifty Shades of Grey back then, being read openly on the bus. Your smut was either out there, in the form of Playboy, or it was buried beneath glossy dust jackets of ‘women’s lit’. But life finds a way, and the smut got found.

Here are five novels that that taught me about smut, and will probably continue to teach others as well...

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews: Children hidden away in the attic of a mansion, two generations of incest, and filicide. The spawn of several sequels (the final one finished by a ghostwriter after Andrews’ death), Flowers was popular among my young teenage friends and me because the narrator is a teenage girl like us... only trapped in an attic with her handsome, sensitive, strong older brother. Hey, he wasn’t our brother, so we could understand the attraction. With each page the adult characters’ actions became more reprehensible — and unrealistic — but we couldn’t look away. We knew the incest was taboo, but that’s part of what made it so hot  since the scenes weren’t terribly explicit.

Review Round-up: Time After Time

Paul Witcover's The Emperor of All Things and Julie Cross' The Tempest - two books about time and what makes us tick.

Paul Witcover's The Emperor of All Things (2013) is the start of a sprawling epic. Set in 1758, it features Daniel Quare, a talented journeyman in the Worshipful Company of Clockworkers. The Company is one of the cornerstones of the British Empire, for, as many a general knows, precise time measurement is the key to many a maneuver.

But the remit of the Company extends even further than just making good clocks: it investigates (and quashes) any sort of innovation into time-keeping devices. Daniel's role is a complicated one. He's a double agent within the guild, playing one faction against the other in order to satisfy his own need to learn more about the nature of time.

He's also curious about his own heritage (he's an orphan, naturally). And super-duper curious about the crazy new timepiece that he picked up from the unconscious body of a (sexy) cat burglar named Grimalkin. Something something fairies. Something something French spies. Something something war across dimensions. Did I mention "sprawling epic"? This is a really ambitious book.

For the most part, Mr. Witcover pulls it off: the fairies and the orphans and the cat burglars and the French and the dragons and the time and the espionage. Largely, this is achieved by sacrificing Daniel's agency; he comes across as one of the world's last true innocents, bounding from place to place, attentively listening to vast amounts of exposition.

Granted, being an epic amongst epics, it is revealed that Daniel is Extremely Special, and all the stories that the reader picks up are, inevitably, related to Him. (Of course, any reader that didn't pick up on "Extremely Special" at the word "orphan" is really the last true innocent.)

Rae Carson's Fire and Thorns and Benedict Jacka's Fated by Lizzie Barrett

Two fantasy debuts that are trying something difference - Rae Carson's Fire and Thorns and Benedict Jacka's Fated. 

Fire and Thorns (2011), by Rae Carson, tries very, very hard and almost succeeds in delivering a refreshing and absorbing YA novel.

It’s well written with an engaging heroine, Princess Elisa, who thinks herself useless, is jealous of her sister and ignorant about a great many things except tactical warfare, and there are some nice details and passages that kept me reading. The entire premise makes a change from many second world fantasies – Fire and Thorns is set in quasi-Arabian lands, with names that are reminiscent of ancient Turkey, Cyprus and Morocco and the world is highly religious to a monotheistic God. So far, so fairly unusual for your average young adult fantasy.

Elisa is the bearer of the Godstone, literally a blue stone in her naval placed there by God during her naming ceremony, something that happens once every hundred years. All bearers have a destiny to fulfil and they have been chosen to do something remarkable for their people. The issue is that Elisa doesn’t know what. The other issue is that she’s been hastily married to a neighbouring King who need her father’s troops for the war that everyone is sure will soon threaten the lands.

Elisa isn’t too sure how she feels about this, and is even less sure when, in quick succession, she finds out: a) her husband is a coward; b) her husband refuses to acknowledge that she is his wife; c) her husband has a mistress and a son; and d) that being the bearer means people are going to kidnap her.

Underground Reading: Adultery in Suburbia by Matthew Bradley

Adultury in Suburbia (1964) is a poisonous little tract, disguised as a pornographic one. And that's no bad thing. Matthew Bradley's scathing indictment of Midwestern suburban hypocrisy makes for a much better story than a conventional tale of saucy housewives.

The titular suburbia is the development on River Road, outside of Columbus Ohio. The four houses that make up the estate share both common swimming pool and sense of superiority. The group call themselves "The Cliffdwellers", ostensibly as a joke, but it very quickly becomes apparent that they're a clique of cut-throat bourgeoisie, keen to establish themselves as a new elite.

At the start of the book, three of the four homes are occupied, each with a childless couple. Tom Martin owns a taxicab company and plays in backroom politics. A good proportion of his income is tithed: to local cops, local unions and a national fraternity of mysterious Italian gentlemen. His sense of community spirit stops there, as Tom takes pains not to pay taxes. His wife, Nell, is a former stripper and a lesbian. (Tom knew about half of that when they got married.) They don't get along so well.

Next door live the Durants. George Durant is the "immigrant made good", a Greek man who owns a thriving nightclub. His wife, May, is squeaky clean - the perfectly submissive wife, who lives in a castle in the clouds. Their defining issue is their lack of children. George thinks May is infertile and uses it as an excuse to play around (a lot). May takes this upon herself, and adds a few more bricks to her wall of denial. (The author, interestingly, implies that George is probably impotent: one of the many daggers that Mr. Bradley twists into his characters' backs).

Underground Reading: Mad Baxter and Big Red's Daughter

Two vintage romantic adventures from Fawcett Gold Medal: Big Red's Daughter and Mad Baxter. Will the strapping manly-men triumph over adversity and win the girl? [Spoiler] Yes [/Spoiler]

John McPartland's Big Red's Daughter (1953) is a sterling example of the 1950's quest for masculine identity. Jim Work is back from Korea. He has no family, no job, no demands or loyalties - merely a bit of money in his pocket and pleasant memories of the California coastline. He heads to Carmel to check out the university, vaguely thinking that this could be the next step towards his future.

A car accident (Jim's battered Ford vs a glamourous MG) introduces Jim to the locals. A stunning young woman steps out of the car, followed by her vicious boyfriend. A few blows are exchanged and Jim's first impressions prove correct: this is the woman of his dreams... and she's dating a jackass. Jim, within a bare few pages, has the focus he's been missing. He doesn't know how he's going to woo Wild Kearny, but he knows that he must try. 

Jim's outclassed from the very beginning. Buddy isn't just great in a fist-fight, he's got money, charm and a certain brutish appeal. Wild isn't the only one taken with him, all the local ladies are in his thrall. And, even if Buddy weren't in the picture, Wild is out of Jim's league. She's beautiful, rich and connected. She's not just a part of local society, her father is "Big Red" Kearny, a legendary gambler and underworld figure. (Despite the title and cover strapline, Big Red actually has very little to do with the book.)

Review Round-up: Kids these days

With the launch of two new young adult imprints (from established genre presses) in as many days, it may be time for quick trip down memory lane with some vintage tales.

In Hope Dahle Jordan's Take Me to My Friend (1962), seventeen year old Julie Jameson is faced with the biggest challenge of her life: driving from Florida to Illinois. Julie, her mother and her grandmother are all enjoying their time at the beach when they learn that Julie's father and uncle have been in a car crash. Her mother flies back, as there's no time to spare. This leaves Julie - indecisive, shy Julie - with the responsibility of driving her grandmother and all their stuff back. 

Poor Julie. From the opening pages, the reader is doused liberally in her insecurities. She's by no means a failure - good grades, good looking, good boyfriend, good future - but Julie's never been able to find her own way. "She feels unworthy of her parents", Julie describes herself (in the third person), "she wanted to be the bystander, not the star" (12). In fact, Julie only defines herself by her outgoing boyfriend, Peter. Slightly older and a much more dominant person, Peter lets Julie do what she wants: follow. 

The challenge of cross-country driving terrifies Julie. She's terrible behind the wheel and has no sense of direction. Plus, this is late December and the very idea of driving on snow (not a problem in Florida, but definitely a challenge once in the Midwest), leaves her petrified. Her grandmother is good company, but has her own (real) problems to deal with, like being very old and very ill. Julie exclaims for a bit, but is overruled. She's going to have to grow up and make the drive.

Underground Reading: The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

While on holiday recently, we discovered a trove of mid-century pulps in an appropriately sepulchral used book store. Although many were of the traditional sort, (dames n’ guns n’ lousy attitudes), there were a good number of lady-pulps, too: period romances by long-forgotten authors, with covers and cover-blurbs every bit as contrived, alluring, misleading, ridiculous and wonderful as their male counterparts.

I was particularly delighted to find a Georgette Heyer amongst the crowd.

Heyer got into novel writing because she loved Jane Austen, and wanted to fill the world with mannered romances, unencumbered with the breath-stealing prose and social conscience of the great Victorian novels. (Stupid boring poor people and their stupid boring problems.)  Her Regency romances were, for a while, very popular. But they’ve drifted out of the public consciousness, referenced now only occasionally by pulp enthusiasts and nostalgic romance fans.

Underground Reading: No Down Payment by John McPartland

No Down Payment (1957, with the 1960 cover shown here) was John McPartland’s breakthrough novel. Previously stuck in the 'wilds' of the Gold Medal jungle, No Down Payment, a fictional expose of the new suburban lifestyle, proved a top seller and was made into a movie featuring Joanne Woodward.

In 1957, the idea of suburban living was still something new. And, if the fiction is to be believed, the 'burbs were weird places. In their favor, the suburbs were crammed to the gills with the New People: the Up and Comers, the Success Stories.In Mr. McParland’s book, there’s a sort of desperate repetition of the “oh, aren’t we so lucky?” mantra.

Every Saturday the shops sell out of charcoal because every family cooks a perfect steak in the perfect weather on BBQ behind their perfect home. This is the age of easy credit and electric conveniences and all sorts of home wizardry. One man charmingly counts the motors in his home as a way of marking success – he grew up with none, now he has 15 (17, once he remembers the ones in the BBQ and rotisserie). [We could now do the same with computers, I suspect.]

Underground Reading: Nurse Kathryn and Night Club Nurse

A distinctly medicinal pair of reviews with Peggy O’More’s Nurse Kathryn and Rose Dana’s Night Club Nurse.

Peggy O'More's Nurse Kathryn (1965) follows the trials and tribulations of the titular nurse as she works at the psychiatric clinic of a mid-sized town. Kathryn’s life is, for the most part, perfect. Her fiancé, Jack, is a stoic, gentle man with a solid career and huge family. Her roommate, Bibi, is a vivacious sounding board – the wacky-yin to Kathryn’s buckled-down yang. Best of all, Kathryn’s ‘new’ psychiatrist – her boss – is the delicious and perceptive Dr. Lamont. He knows how to solve all the problems, especially when aided by Kathryn’s gossip and insight. The two team up to form an unstoppable pair of judgemental psychiatric juggernauts.

Of course, it isn’t all perfect, or else Nurse Kathryn would be an even duller book that it already is. Kathryn’s by-the-numbers life has some real problems, mostly having to do with Jack. His plodding attitude with Kathryn often borders on the careless – our protagonist’s life is one of broken dates and cold meals. Jack prioritises his sprawling family first, his career second and his future bliss with Kathryn a distant third. Kathryn tries to appreciate this. She’s the child of a fairly bizarre marriage – her father being an open-handed backwoods doctor and his wife a domineering shrew. Always conscious of her mother’s harpy ways, Kathryn tries to let Jack swing his own life. As a result, she’s been “practically engaged” for a long four years, with no end in sight.