Trash Fiction

I've undoubtedly mentioned my love of pulp magazines and sleazy paperback novels before. Whilst many of the stories themselves are now pretty much unreadable, (although, to be fair, much excellent fiction, by great authors, first saw the light of day between the covers of pulp magazines or cheap mass-market paperbacks), the cover art remains fascinating. There's just something about its crude vigour which, at its best, tells you so much more about the contents than any synopsis ever can. Rather than mere plot details, the art gives you a taste, an impression of its pure essence. If that makes any sense, that is.

Take this cover by Earle Bergey (who also did some pulp magazine covers); with deceptively simplicity and garish colours, it suggests perfectly the sleaziness, the sheer squalor, in fact, of the situation. You just know that bar, which is barely sketched in behind the figures is a real dive, with sawdust on the floor, and frequented by low lifes and alcoholics. Even without the strap line "She was the scandal of New Orleans", you know this is the tale of a loose woman wallowing in the gutters 0f depravity (maybe I should be writing those strap lines). Now, the reality is that the novel itself is unlikely to live up o such expectations. But that's the point, it's the cover that's selling it.



I'm not sure who the artist on this one was, but whoever it was certainly knew how to convey an atmosphere of oppressive sleaziness. There's more detail than in the earlier cover illustration, which is used to good effect. The bare floorboards, sagging sofa, unpainted and worn-looking door and faded paintwork on the walls all give a powerful impression of inner-city squalor. Moreover, the glimpse of the bedroom leaves us in doubt as to where this liaison is heading. This novel is one of many lesbian-themed novels of the period, this 'forbidden love' being portrayed as a terrible yet - or male readers, at least - titillating perversion.


Pick Up, featuring a Robert Stanley cover, treads similar ground to our first entry. If anything, Stanley succeeds in making his bar seem even more seedy than Bergey's. You can just feel the grime and sweat in that bar. The dimly lit background action underlining just what kind of joint this is. The sleeveless top and casually held cigarette speak volumes about the character of the guy being picked up in the foreground - crude, yet vigourous. A bit of rough. I especially like the detail of the table having tubular steel legs - it just screams cheapness and lack of sophistication. Clearly, cheap bars and even cheaper women were a popular theme in this kind of fiction back in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Finally, back to Earle Bergey for a cover which isn't so much sleazy as evocative, for me at least, of the hopelessness of unrequited love. I can identify with the protagonist here. Not because I'm some kind of American football hero, obviously, but because I've been there myself - "He loved another man's woman" - all too often. The illustration just sums up the sheer despair and futility of the whole business. It doesn't matter how successful you are in other fields of endeavour, it all seems so meaningless when you know that the object of your affections is never going to be truly yours.

(All the images in this post come from the excellent Vintage Paperbacks site).