Frisco Flat by Stuart James. Monarch (1960), 140 pp.
Ex-prize fighter Frankie Cargo returns to his boyhood home near a small fishing village on the northern Monterey County coast. He’s been summoned by his old pal, Polo Girolomo, but he’s not sure why. Frankie learns that his recently deceased father was beaten to death and that the murderer is still at large. He also discovers that the community has changed. Formerly independent fishermen have sold out to the new cannery owner, Sam Barlow, who seems to have imposed a reign of fear on everyone. Frankie soon runs afoul of Barlow’s chief enforcer, psychopathic deputy sheriff Jake Springer. He also meets Springer’s girlfriend, beautiful hooker Tosca Sorrento, who has moved into his father’s house. Frankie has much to figure out -- if he can stay alive long enough to do it.
This story doesn’t quite come together. Which is too bad, because the writing approaches the level of John McPartland’s. The pacing is brisk. The action sequences are exciting. The descriptions, especially the sequence depicting tuna fishing, are detailed and convincing. Sadly, the characters lack depth. One of them seems to have no purpose aside from providing Frankie a sexual partner. Worse yet, the plot doesn’t make sense. Frankie is in constant peril, but it turns out that those who are harassing him have no reason to do so. And his plan to defeat the bad guys requires not clever thinking or decisive action but just good luck. All in all, the book offers a fairly entertaining read but not a completely satisfying one. Finally, the title represents deception pure and simple. Frisco Flat refers not to an apartment in San Francisco but a fictional town like Castroville. And the story isn’t even set there. Many original readers probably wound up with something they did not expect.
NORTH BEACH GIRL
North Beach Girl by John Trinian. Fawcett Gold Medal (1960), 176 pp.
Sometime model Erin Howard hasn’t found a comfortable spot for herself in San Francisco’s beat community. She has no talent, doesn’t like to work and takes little interest in anything. Mostly she just hangs around, drinking heavily and relying on the largesse of her roommate and girlfriend, tough gallery owner Bruno Snider. Marian and Lilly, another lesbian couple, stay with them. When Erin draws the attention of Riley, a broke but brilliant painter, she can’t work out a response to him. Bruno, however, wants him gone. Meanwhile, Erin continues to ignore her beloved and wealthy grandmother, who lives in a nearby mansion with Old Hibbert, the family retainer. When the woman becomes ill and Riley refuses to disappear, Erin’s life begins to move in new directions.
This novel appeared during the high tide of “lesbian pulp,” when paperback publishers cashed in on daring stories of unsanctioned sex. The books offered excitement and information without actually advocating homosexuality. North Beach Girl presents conventional ideas in a sophisticated way. One is that lesbian relationships are defined by the femme and butch roles. The author furnishes two versions. Erin and Bruno share some genuine affection, while Marian and Lilly are bound merely by sadomasochism. Another common idea, accepted by psychiatrists of the time, is that the more submissive partner might be readily lured into heterosexuality. Here Riley presents that temptation, though his prospects as anyone’s steady boyfriend seem dim. The author, whose real name was Zekial Marko, also presents a balanced view of North Beach. From the outside it’s galleries and street fairs; from the inside it’s drunks and deadbeats. Although the plot eventually drifts into implausibility, the book might still find an audience among historically minded readers.
CARNIVAL OF LUST
Even a book like this, which might be dismissed as a reprehensible piece of garbage, has a story of its own. I wasn't able to track the title back to its first usage. In the nineteenth century it appeared in Christian texts and war memoirs, often accompanied by words like “pillage” and “murder.” The book was the sixth issued by Nightstand, one of several paperback publishers to appear in response to the loosening of censorship rules in the late 1950s. Other early entrants into the sleaze genre included Fabian (1955), Saber (1957), Midwood (1957), Newstand (Chicago, 1958), Bedside (1959), Chariot (1959), Magnet (1959), Kozy (1960) and Merit (1960). These and later publishers turned out thousands of titles in the 1960s and 1970s. Among the writers to enter this market was John Jakes (1932 - ). He was already established in westerns, crime stories and science fiction but had not yet found an audience in historical fiction. It was a decade later when he produced a string of best-sellers in this genre. Here he uses the name J. X. Williams (say J-X fast several times). He hasn’t been associated with Nightstand’s many other Williams titles, but he may have written some of those as well. Which leads finally to the pseudonym, which Jakes originated but other writers soon appropriated. By my count (from the index of Graham Holroyd’s Paperback Prices), no fewer than 250 books, some of them reprints, appeared with Williams as author. Later the name was attached to a probably fictitious filmmaker. It lives on today.
Carnival of Lust by J. X. Williams. Nightstand (1959), 191 pp.
Elaine Cummings and her husband, Jerry, are on their way to a big corporate meeting in San Francisco. Also on the train are Jerry’s voluptuous subordinate, Natalie Sharp, and his randy boss, T. Byron Weede. Although she’s young and pretty, Elaine no longer interests Jerry and suffers a growing sense of sexual frustration. After she discovers he’s having an affair with Natalie, she engages in some revenge sex with a guy she’s never met. But it provides only momentary relief. When Elaine gets to San Francisco, she’ll have a chance to pursue other opportunities.
Readers of this book in 1959, attracted by the happy revelers on the cover, may not have gotten quite what they expected. True, there are a dozen sex scenes of various kinds. And true, the scenes are rendered with explicitness unusual for the time, though the prose often lurches into silliness. (E.g., “Their limbs were bands of steel, holding them in the furious, ecstatic fusion of two beings,” p. 64). Nonetheless, a couple aspects of the book might have been surprising. First, the book has as many scenes of violence as it does of sex. Elaine’s sex partners repeatedly fly into drunken rages. They don’t just rip her clothes off. She is raped, beaten up and nearly pushed from a hotel roof. Second, Elaine is not a party girl, looking for a good time. Nor is she a social rebel, attacking the double standard. Her ultimate goal is a steady sex life with a reliable husband. So in its own odd way the book delivers a conservative message, warning against excess and supporting conventional behavior.
ROOMING HOUSE
Rooming House by Fred Malloy. Woodford Press (1951).
In 1926 jazz musician Harry Purcell arrives in San Francisco with his band. He was once a star performer, but heavy drinking has lowered the quality of his work. He takes a room at a boarding house run by sluggish and unimaginative Emma D’Arpino and owned by her mean and domineering father, Guido. Like several previous boarders, Harry begins an affair with Emma. She becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, his fellow band-members, annoyed at his growing unreliability, oust him from the group and leave town. Without a job and with parental responsibilities on the way, Harry is in a bad spot.
All of these happenings are presented in flashback. Readers learn from the outset that Harry is on trial for a triple murder. The author eschews suspense. He opts instead for a recounting by his third-person narrator of the “inexorable chain of events” (p. 14 of the paperback reprint) that lead to the killings. It’s true that Harry can’t resist women or alcohol, but his weaknesses do not seem to be forcing him in any particular direction. He’s just an amoral and spineless drunk who stumbles through one unpleasant episode after another. Because nothing is driving Harry, he can’t generate much sympathy when he behaves badly. Perhaps the author deserves credit for focusing his book on such an uncompelling character. Whether he also deserves much of a modern audience is another question.
INVASION!
Invasion! by Whitman Chambers. Dutton (1943), 320 pp.
John Mercer, recently in the insurance business, is hiding in a Los Angeles storm drain. Japanese troops had launched their invasion only five days before and had already pushed fifteen miles inland. A sort of malaise had prevented John from accompanying his bitchy wife Alice in the mandatory evacuation of the city. Now he’s ready to leave, but he’ll never make it alone. In the drain he meets Hap McGonigle, an addled First World War vet who is leading a small band of civilians who are trying to slip past Japanese patrols. Also in the group are pretty Gail Lange, her condescending boyfriend, Clyde Livingston, and Stella, a plain-spoken and hard-drinking housekeeper. Others join up later, but no one has a good plan for escape.
This is a surprisingly successful piece of popular fiction. The romantic parts may be a little corny, but the action sequences are tense and fast moving. Chambers adds to the tension with a tight focus on his protagonist. A none-too-reassuring speech by President Roosevelt sets up the big picture. After that, John knows only what he experiences in sewers, storm drains, and abandoned buildings, where an enemy soldier could be around any corner. He loses track of where he is. Even his own neighborhood becomes unfamiliar. When the group isn’t moving, it’s talking politics. A surprising variety of opinions show discontent about the prosecution of the war and some doubts about its purpose and outcome. Nevertheless, the author doesn’t hide his message: Americans should stop grousing and commit themselves to victory. The book’s surrealistic ending reinforces the point. Modern readers may be intrigued by a war story in which neither the author nor the original audience knew how the war was going to turn out.
SEE WHAT I MEAN?
It’s a pretty familiar idea that the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 caused much disillusionment on the American left. Suddenly, Stalin was no longer leading the struggle against fascism. The Popular Front collapsed. Communist party members and fellow travelers had either to abandon their beliefs or to leave the organization that had given them hope. What never occurred to me until I read See What I Mean? was that right-wingers faced the same problem. They lost a hero when Hitler scrapped his longtime struggle against communism (and its purported Jewish masters) and made a deal with Stalin. I don’t have numbers on this of course, but I’m guessing many became confused and disheartened.
See What I Mean? By Lewis Browne. Random House (1943), 245 pp.
In the late 1930s PR guy Clem Smullet, having worn out his welcome in Hollywood, needs to find a job. His kindly landlady, Mrs. Gunderson, sets him up with John Christian Power, leader of a flegling anti-semitic movement called “the Crusade.” Power, tall, ascetic and deeply committed to his beliefs, has enough charisma to gather dues-paying followers. His grim security chief, Captain Cleaver, has less interest in Jews than in recruiting a private army. Power’s cynical events organizer, Doc Gribble, has no ideological concerns at all and cares only about making money. Broke and intrigued, Smullet becomes the Crusade’s publicity director and joins its inner circle. He’s nonetheless a bit leery about what he may be getting into.
Smullet tells this tale from his jail cell, so readers know right away that things are not going to turn out well for him. He’s not an entirely reliable narrator. On one hand he promises to tell the inside story of the Crusade with complete truthfulness. On the other he claims “incidentally” to demonstrate his innocence of all the charges leveled against him. In particular, Smullet seems to want his audience to believe that the movement in its early days differs little from other offbeat attempts in California to address pressing social problems. The narrator never changes his voice, which stays close to comic patter no matter what he’s talking about. So the book remains a fun read even when it’s making references to people and events of seventy years ago. Modern readers may hear an echo of politics in our own time, especially in the Crusade’s efforts to rouse anger and designate enemies.
BUSCH ASLEEP
It’s not that often that one of the authors I’ve been reading makes the news. So I was surprised to see a photo of Niven Busch in this week’s Time magazine. Busch, you’ll recall, wrote They Dream of Home (1944), Day of the Conquerors (1946), The Actor (1955) and several other novels -- as well as more than a dozen screenplays. He died in 1991. So what’s he doing in Time? He’s sleeping and, so the accompanying story suggests, revitalizing his creative juices. The picture is from 1937, so maybe Busch was working on In Old Chicago when he dozed off.
LOVE, DEATH AND THE LADIES' DRILL TEAM
Love, Death, and the Ladies’ Drill Team by Jessamyn West. Harcourt, Brace (1955), 248 pp.
This book offers a compilation of fourteen short stories from the first half (specifically, 1939 to 1955) of West’s fifty-year career. Apparently all of them had been published earlier in various magazines. She revised a few for this book. The length of the stories varies from six to twenty-six pages. Just over half have California settings, though the exact locations are often unclear. The stories feature plain folks from ranches and small towns. The issues they face are sometimes momentous and sometimes of little consequence. In either case the author uses a flat style that reflects the calmness of her characters. Only in “Learn to Say Goodbye,” a tale of a teenager and the steer he’s been raising, does she ramp up the drama. Because only two of the stories have the same characters and setting, the book lacks the unity of West’s earlier collection, Cress Delahanty. Readers unfamiliar with her work might want to go there first.
THE BIG GUY
The Big Guy by Wade Miller. Fawcett Gold Medal (1953), 192 pp.
Freelance thug Joe Drum arrives in Los Angeles with loyal sidekick Archie Sheldon to carry out a strong-arm job for city councilman Hugo Bronson. After Joe’s target, a rich gambler named Nick Fontaine, dies of a heart attack, Joe concludes that the leaders of L. A.’s underworld have grown soft and vulnerable. With the right entrée he believes he can get some action for himself. When suitcases crammed with stolen money come into his possession, Joe thinks he has what he needs to make a decisive move. The story continues as readers are likely to expect, though without the sense of organized crime’s complexity that Richard Prather portrays in The Peddler (1952). Wade and Miller had previously published fifteen crime novels, so they’re long past having trouble with pacing and dialogue. Their final ten pages, however, especially the revelation on the last page, seem to undercut what ought to be the inevitability of the ending. The book should probably be considered optional reading for those enjoy hard-boiled novels.
OF MICE AND MEN
Usually I stay away from famous books. Of Mice and Men is almost the best example. It is available in 4,899 libraries world wide, has been published in 302 editions, and ranks second in the “California Canon.” A Google search for the book (along with its film and stage adaptations) yields 2.1 million returns. Innumerable summaries, analyses and study guides are available online. At goodreads members have posted 8,474 reviews -- fewer than those posted for any of the Harry Potter books but still a huge number. Does any more need to be said?
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Covici-Friede (1937), 186 pp.
Probably not. But I’m going to give some of my impressions anyway. I usually begin with a set-up section that covers the first 15 percent of the book. Ordinarily, that’s enough for me to mention the main characters and point out the direction of the plot. One might expect that in a short book like this the author would have hurried to establish his characters. But Steinbeck does just the opposite. In the early pages he introduces only two itinerant farm workers, big and slow-witted Lennie Small and his pal and unofficial guardian, George Milton. Steinbeck apparently wants readers to focus on the relationship between the two men and not become distracted later when more characters, all residents on the ranch south of Soledad where Lennie and George go to work, make an appearance. Distraction is a definite possibility because the new arrivals are rendered in telling detail and with sympathetic understanding.
The book represents a conjunction of two of Steinbeck’s favorite themes. First, working the land in California presents many difficulties. And second, men can live contentedly without female companionship. (Perhaps “only” needs to be put between “can” and “live.”) All of his California novels except The Wayward Bus explore these themes in one way or another. Which could pose a problem for readers unconcerned with ranching in the Salinas Valley or turned off by the author’s misogynistic streak. They might be tempted to lump this book with other literary masterpieces that no one reads voluntarily. That would be a mistake. The book is so short -- it can (and should) be read in one sitting -- and packs so much emotional punch that serious readers are bound to find it rewarding.
