Kiss Her Goodbye by Wade Miller. Lion Library (1956), 191 pp.
Ed Darnell and his sister, Emily, are driving east into the desert in response to a stabbing incident in Bakersfield . Ed, at twenty-eight and looking nothing like Emily, has taken complete responsibility for her care. She’s ten years younger and very pretty but suffers from a mental disability that has lowered her intelligence. Although she wants to be a normal teenager with normal responses to other people, she doesn’t always understand their motives and reacts violently when touched by strangers. She and Ed stop at Mr. Tubbs’ run-down motel in a small town outside Barstow. Ed decides to stay and lands a job driving a truck for Cory Sheridan, who also employs an attractive bookkeeper, Marge Wayne. When Cory gets his eyes on Emily, Ed worries that trouble may be on the way.
The story unwinds entirely from Ed’s point of view. He’s in every scene and only his thoughts are recounted. Other characters reveal their ideas in conversations with him. Ed defines his dilemma: Either he ships Emily off to an institution, where her dream of a somewhat normal life will be smothered, or he tries to keep her under his control indefinitely, which will narrow his future and probably won’t be possible anyway. Even though the relationship between Ed and Emily is odd, the authors quickly take incest off the table and hide it in a cupboard. Emily may not be as slow-witted as Ed thinks; she made it through ninth grade before he took her out of school, for example, and he must rely on commands rather than persuasion to get her to do anything. So how does the protagonist solve the problem that drives the novel? He doesn’t. The authors do it for him.
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NORTH BEACH NYMPH
North Beach Nymph by Lew Lessing. Kozy Books (1960), 160 pp.
Ed Morgan is in his early thirties and starting a new life. He’s moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco, abandoned the hardware business for a chance to become a professional photographer, and needs to wait less than a year before his divorce becomes final. But thoughts of Myrna, his cold and cheating wife, have made him doubt that he’ll experience love again. His psychiatrist, Dr. Porter, encourages him to keep working on the issue. Ed, lonelier than ever, finally gets up the nerve to make a pass at Connie, an attractive young woman he sees at a café. He tells her how much he needs her and how wonderful their relationship would be. He’s stunned when she believes him and shows up at his apartment for hours of passionate sex. Soon feeling more confident around women, Ed hopes to meet someone more his type than Connie. She, however, does not intend to disappear.
Publishers like Kozy Books appeared around 1960 to provide mildly erotic stories to male readers. But because they were novels and not merely pornography, they needed to provide context for the parade of sex scenes. They needed to have a larger point. North Beach Nymph furnishes a good example. The author shows that marriages aren’t over when they’re over. A break-up may lead to dysfunctional changes in attitudes and behavior that continue long after a couple has separated. Ed continually recalls incidents in which his wife deceives and humiliates him. He is so fearful that he’ll never be able to trust another woman that he hires a psychiatrist to get his feelings back on track. The rest of the story may be implausible, but the point it raises is not.
MISTRESS OF SIN
Mistress of Sin by Dan Elliott. Nightstand (1960), 190 pp,
Kevjin Lyle, in his mid-thirties, works as the key assistant to big-time movie producer Lee Naumann. Kevin recommends novels for film adaptation, attends meetings with agents, and sometimes recruits young women for acting roles. Kevin dislikes the last task –he considers his boss a “lecherous skunk”– but has a more pressing concern, negotiating a divorce from his wife, Donna, which will allow joint custody of their two children. To maximize chances for Kevin’s success but add to his unhappiness in the meantime,, his lawyer, Ben Monterale, has advised him to avoid sexual relationships. But soon Kevin gets involved wtih gorgeous twenty-year-old dancer Lorayne Winant. Her zeal for rough sex leaves him stunned. Her main interest, however, is launching her film career. She wants Kevin to introduce her to Naumann and is unconcerned that the producer may expect her to participate in strange sexual activities.
Although Robert Silverberg wrote quickly, cranking out eight previous Nightstand novels in 1960, he took a surprising about of care in putting together this book. The main characters, Kevin and Lorayne, are fairly well rounded. They have other interests beside sex, engage in thoughtful conversations, and view Hollywood with clear-eyed realism. Even Naumann, lascivious though he may be, has qualities that explain his power and high status. Other details about movie-making are convincing. The sex scenes, all featuring Kevin, show up with regularity and probably are as explicit as the government allowed in 1960. The author keeps the narrative moving quickly, at least in part because the story takes place in less than a week. The brief time frame has a signal disadvantage, however, because it also renders implausible the life-changing decisions at the end of the book.