Deeper Into 1960s Sleaze
I think calling these books āsleazeā is a fucking insulting putdown word by plugged-up asshole academics and NY Times bestseller-list snobs feel way above their station. Fuck āem, and the sleaze they rode in on, thatās what I say, from my unassailable, literary nabob pinnacle, never forgetting my rootsā¦as I wish they might remember theirs.
- Harlan Ellison, Introduction to Pulling A Train
After my post a few days ago Iāve been spending more time lately reading about the sleaze paperbacks of the 1960s. I picked up a couple of (relatively) cheap books from eBay and Abe, and managed to find digital versions of a few more. And while Iāve been reading some of the actual work, Iāve been spending a lot of time reading about them, as well.
This has been one of those deep dives where the more I learn, the weirder and more fascinating it all gets. I went in expecting not much more than trashy covers and scandalous titles (and donāt get me wrong, thereās plenty of that) but thereās also this whole world of genre-mashing, pseudonyms, and unexpected literary history tucked away in these books that Iām amazed by.
That's not to say that some of the content in these books isn't completely repulsive, of course. I've put down more of these books than I've finished reading because some authors seem absolutely fascinated by topics that would turn your stomach. For the rest of this post, and basically any time I talk about these books in a positive light, let's assume I'm not talking about that side of things. That's maybe a topic for another day.
The thing with these books is that when they're good they're really engaging. And itās especially fascinating when you start to realise who was writing these things. A huge number of these vbooks were published under pseudonyms or personal aliases (a practice that, of course, persists today. Do you think my government name is āKit Marloweā?), which makes it sort of like literary archaeology trying to figure out who did what. Some writers used them as a stepping stone to more mainstream careers, while others simply used them as a way to pay the bills. (Again, the more things change, the more things stay the same.) Harlan Ellison, for example, wrote Sex Gang in 1959 under the name Paul Merchant. This is a collection of linked stories originally written for various pulp magazines, wrapped in scandalous titles to boost sales. Physical copies of this go for well over Ā£300 these days and Iād love to own one but, alas, I donāt have that money to spare. (Maybe someone else will commission me to write a story for them and then I can treat myself.)
Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block, both of whom went on to become major crime writers, also spent a good chunk of their early careers in the sleaze trenches. Westlake used names like āAlan Marshallā and āEdwin Westā, with Block often writing as āSheldon Lordā or āAndrew Shawā. The two are also known to have collaborated at times; the most well-known (and well-verified) of these collabs seems to be a book called Sin Hellcat, which also goes for about Ā£150. This is another one Iād love to read. Itās wild to me that two future legends of noir fiction were at one point knocking out sex novels together on tight deadlines just to keep the lights on. And despite the constraints of the genre, you can often seen glimmers of their later voices in these early works - sharp dialogue, off beat humour, and a real feel for character.
Robert Silverberg, whoās best known for science fiction, also spent a few incredibly prolific years in the sleaze markets. Heās said in interviews that at the peak of it he was writing a novel every two weeks. A lot of them - most of them, letās be honest - were pure pulp, but every now and then something stranger and more ambitious would slip through. Sex Jungle (1959), published under the name Don Elliott, it one example of this. Itās a coming-of-age story dressed up as smut, but by all accounts it actually reads more like a gritty urban bildungsroman (so far Iāve been unable to track down a copy to read for myself). Love Addict, also as Don Elliot, leans similarly psychological, following a man who becomes obsessed with chasing women to fill a deeper emotional void.
Silverberg has said that writing these books helped him learn to craft characters quickly and cleanly, and you can see flashes of the writer he would become even in his sleaziest material. As a writer myself I find this really interesting, because it tracks with my own experience too. Iāve been writing fiction for over 20 years, and writing professionally for close to 6 years, but in the past couple of months of writing smut Iāve really felt my character work come on leaps and bounds in a very small amount of time. (Thatās probably a topic for another blog post at some point.)
Something else that fascinates me is the queer side of sleaze. Because these books were operating under the radar, they often managed to tell stories that mainstream publishing wouldnāt touch, and in particular they were able to tell stories about queer characters. Writers like Ann Weldy (writing as, and more famous as, Ann Bannon), Marjorie Meaker (writing as Vin Packer), and Valerie Taylor wrote lesbian pulp fiction that offered a glimpse at queer life that was hard to find anywhere else at the time. Bannonās Beebo Brinker Chronicles are probably the most well-known now, with the effect that theyāre some of the easiest books of these era to get hold of and actually read in the present day. And they still hold up surprisingly well, not just as period pieces but as emotionally rich stories with real depth. Meakerās Spring Fire is also another landmark. Itās often said to be the novel that launched lesbian pulp fiction as a genre, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. These seem to me to be a really important part of queer literary history, and theyāre a part that I donāt see people talk about very often.
Whatās so compelling to me about these books is how many contradictions they contain. Theyāre formulaic, but also wildly inventive. Theyāre exploitative, but groundbreaking. They were written quickly, anonymously, and (oftentimes) cynically, yet some of them still manage to feel raw and honest and weirdly moving.
Iām still really new to all of this, and Iām definitely not an expert, but itās been fun digging through this forgotten little corner of publishing. If youāve got a favourite title, author, or especially a great cover (some of them are truly something else), Iād love to hear about it. Thereās something exciting about tracing the lines between pulp, crime, queer lit, and science fiction through books that were never supposed to last but somehow did.
And, after all of this, Iām still determined to write something in this style. Watch this space for that.
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