Glorious trash

perfectpawn · Jun 22, 2009

I've lately become enamored with the "trash fiction" scene of the '60s through the '70s -- "paperback originals" with lurid covers, usually by psuedonymous authors, with the promise of lots of sex and violence (both of which were always hyped on the cover). In the UK, New English Library specialized in this stuff, usually with mostly-nude women on the cover. Here in the US...probably Avon.

So has this stuff pretty much disappeared? I'd love for some publisher to bring this back -- mass market paperbacks with appropriately-lurid subjects, all of it a loving tribute to a forgotten genre. I think it would be successful, especially in the summer -- stuff like this is made for beach reading.

One of these trash fiction auters was Burt Hirschfeld, who published most of his trashy stuff under the name "Hugh Barron." He then hit upon a string of bestsellers starting with "Fire Island" in 1970 (published under his own name), which was a bit less trashier than the Barron material, but was all about people going to the beach over the course of several summers. So he obviously figured out the secret to trash success.

I've already come up with two trashy plots, and a psuedonym to boot. I'm thinking some fringe publisher should do this, maybe even McSweeney's...a whole line of tacky trash. It would go over like gangbusters!

Kitty Pryde · Jun 22, 2009

Something like the Hard Case Crime Series?:

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi

Go look at the covers. These are both reprints of old pulps and newly written pulps.

HigherDef · Jun 22, 2009

the book i'm working on now sounds similar, except for with a moral underwriting haha

sex, sex and more sex with some violence and then self discovery

perfectpawn · Jun 22, 2009

Thanks for the Hard Case reminder -- I knew I'd seen something similar out there recently, though I get more of a '40s/'50s feel from them. And crime fiction's never been my thing.

Forgot to mention -- one thing these trash fiction books were usually about: glitz and glamor. The Barron books in particular are usually about some bimbo working her way through Hollywood -- both on the screen and in bed.

underthecity · Jun 22, 2009

The "trash fiction" I remember of the 70s was horror. There was always a skeleton or big skull on the cover. If anyone ever would admit to reading those, I'd be interested to know what they were like. Who published those, anyway?

perfectpawn · Jun 22, 2009

There's actually at least one website devoted to the "Nasty Nels," ie trash horror released by UK-based NEL in the '70s:

www.nastynels.wordpress.com

I haven't read any of them, either...horror fiction's also never been my thing!

The Lonely One · Jun 22, 2009

I'm pretty uncultured with this stuff but everything has its place; I accept any niche that is honest about what it is. If it's coming off as pretentious and edgy, probably not something I'd read. But if it's just pushing a certain realm of fiction and is clear about that, it seems interesting.

perfectpawn · Feb 4, 2011

Glorious Trash

I'd forgotten about this thread I started a few years ago. Not finding much info on the sort of "popular fiction" novels I was into, I decided to start my own blog a few months back:

http://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/

Reviews of the "trash fiction" I had in mind when I started this thread. Any suggestions for more titles, please let me know!

dangerousbill · Feb 4, 2011

perfectpawn said:
I've lately become enamored with the "trash fiction" scene of the '60s through the '70s -- "paperback originals" with lurid covers, usually by psuedonymous authors, with the promise of lots of sex and violence (both of which were always hyped on the cover)

Check out Disruptive Publishing. This is the URL for their affiliate site. Most of it is trashy sex, not a lot of violence.
http://www.dispub.com/catalog/affiliate_info.php

dangerousbill · Feb 4, 2011

Kitty Pryde said:
Something like the Hard Case Crime Series?:

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi

Go look at the covers. These are both reprints of old pulps and newly written pulps.

Good site.

Some of it reads like a parody of itself:
'The Corpse Wore Pasties'???

Susan Coffin · Feb 4, 2011

perfectpawn said:
I've lately become enamored with the "trash fiction" scene of the '60s through the '70s -- "paperback originals" with lurid covers, usually by psuedonymous authors, with the promise of lots of sex and violence (both of which were always hyped on the cover). In the UK, New English Library specialized in this stuff, usually with mostly-nude women on the cover. Here in the US...probably Avon.

So has this stuff pretty much disappeared? I'd love for some publisher to bring this back -- mass market paperbacks with appropriately-lurid subjects, all of it a loving tribute to a forgotten genre. I think it would be successful, especially in the summer -- stuff like this is made for beach reading.

One of these trash fiction auters was Burt Hirschfeld, who published most of his trashy stuff under the name "Hugh Barron." He then hit upon a string of bestsellers starting with "Fire Island" in 1970 (published under his own name), which was a bit less trashier than the Barron material, but was all about people going to the beach over the course of several summers. So he obviously figured out the secret to trash success.

I've already come up with two trashy plots, and a psuedonym to boot. I'm thinking some fringe publisher should do this, maybe even McSweeney's...a whole line of tacky trash. It would go over like gangbusters!

Your comment on the paperbacks from the 60's and 70's reminded me of all the smutty confession magazines I used to read 70's and early 80's. When I was a teenager, mom used to buy them and I'd read them after her. I guess they sell some of them still, such as True Confessions, True Story, and others I can't recall.

When I was young, I thought people really had those situations happen and wrote about them, or at least told other people about the stories and they wrote them. I found out later this is not true from a friend who raised her children writing for women's confession magazines. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

movieman · Feb 4, 2011

perfectpawn said:
There's actually at least one website devoted to the "Nasty Nels," ie trash horror released by UK-based NEL in the '70s:

www.nastynels.wordpress.com

I haven't read any of them, either...horror fiction's also never been my thing!

I haven't recognised any of the covers on that site so far, but I do remember reading a bunch of those kind of NEL books when I was much younger. From what I remember, none of them were great works of literature, but were usually good fun.

movieman · Feb 4, 2011

Ah, I see the 'Rats' books are on there; I still have them somewhere, they were good fun but they were probably released after the real 'pulp' horror era.

I do vaguely remember one of the giant crabs books; I'm sure I read that in the town where it was set, from what I remember my parents had rented a house there for a family vacation and the owner had left the book for visitors to read. I'm not sure what that says about the owner or their sense of humor, but I think the bizarre premise was better than the novel.

I'm guessing one of the reasons for pulp publishers disappearing is that the kind of stories they used to publish are considered pretty much mainstream now. Though given that the horror shelves at the local bookstore seem to be almost entirely filled with effeminate vampires, perhaps it's time for old-fashioned 'rip your head off and eat your guts' monsters to make a comeback.

Edit: Actually, the 'Night of the Crabs' book appears to be on smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/12085 ; must have been when we were on holiday in or near Barmouth. The first sample pages seem about as wacky as I remembered, for $2.99 I might even buy it

.

sunandshadow · Feb 4, 2011

Would modern "trash fiction" (not sure I like that term) be fanfiction, or weird erotica ebooks, or something like that? Or maybe Bizarro stuff like Warrior Wolf Women of the Wastelands?

Libbie · Feb 4, 2011

Oh my god...I LOOOOVE pulps! The trashier the better. I am obsessed with pulps and collect them just for the covers. Working in a used book store makes it easy to feed my addiction.

My favorites are the "true" sex stories. They all have awesome names like Resort Sluts and Real Nympho Tales and The Virgin Whore. And the covers are to die for.

Totally. Yay pulps.

Anyway...I think pulps are no longer part of the scene because of the internet. I mean, pulps were the way to find raunchy entertainment back in the day, whether your preferred raunch was sex or violence or misogynistic dudes with swords. Now, every possible type of raunchy entertainment is available for free online, so there's probably just no market for the pulps anymore. People don't need them as an outlet for curiosity like they once did.

movieman · Feb 5, 2011

sunandshadow said:
Would modern "trash fiction" (not sure I like that term) be fanfiction, or weird erotica ebooks, or something like that?

Maybe the weird erotica: the 'trash' books I read were at least readable, unlike the vast majority of fan fiction. I got the impression that the writers were at least moderately competent, but just setting out to entertain the audience rather than to explore some grand theme.

I'd guess that most of the writers didn't make much money from the books so they didn't spend a long time outlining and polishing. Just throw some vampires, naked women and giant crabs into a story and see where it goes...

Or maybe Bizarro stuff like Warrior Wolf Women of the Wastelands?

That looks more like it to me; actually, if I'd seen that on the shelves at the book store last night I might well have bought it

. I do have 'She Wolves of the Wasteland' on DVD

.

sunandshadow · Feb 5, 2011

movieman said:
Maybe the weird erotica: the 'trash' books I read were at least readable, unlike the vast majority of fan fiction.

Well, I've read some fanfiction which is better-written than the cannon it's based on; some is unreadable but I don't think it's the majority. Depends where and how you go looking for it though. *shrug*

movieman · Feb 5, 2011

sunandshadow said:
Well, I've read some fanfiction which is better-written than the cannon it's based on; some is unreadable but I don't think it's the majority.

Well, I followed Uncle Jim's suggestion of checking out fanfiction.net for an example of what a typical publisher slush pile looks like and... wow... while some of the stories had decent ideas, I'd say 99% of them are barely readable. Ok, I can't guarantee it's 99% because I couldn't stomach reading a hundred stories there, but it must be at least 90%.

I gained new respect for publishing company readers the day I did that.

muddy_shoes · Feb 5, 2011

I grew up reading the "nature gone berserk" horror sub-genre. It was something of a UK fad in the 70s and early 80s, so there was a lot of it to consume in my teens. The premise is definitely the stuff of pulp, but like anything else the execution makes a difference. The sub-genre contains Guy N. Smith and his crabs, sure, but it also contains Jaws and Cujo, The Birds and has overlap with apocalypse SF like Day of the Triffids or The Drowned World.

Back to the lurid paperbacks though, one book cover I remember being utterly enthralled by was the cover for Squirm. I used to sneak it from my father's bedside stack of books and leaf through to find a new scene of death by worms that I could describe to my friends at school.

whacko · Feb 5, 2011

Somebody mentioned The Executioner series on another thread recently. I remember them, mainly for the covers, but never read any. Apparently they're rather good. And not just for the covers.

Anyway, if it wasn't the trash I read, my library would barely cover a shelf.

sunandshadow · Feb 5, 2011

movieman said:
Well, I followed Uncle Jim's suggestion of checking out fanfiction.net for an example of what a typical publisher slush pile looks like and... wow... while some of the stories had decent ideas, I'd say 99% of them are barely readable. Ok, I can't guarantee it's 99% because I couldn't stomach reading a hundred stories there, but it must be at least 90%.

I gained new respect for publishing company readers the day I did that.

Try filtering so you only get stories rated M or T, that usually removes a lot of incoherent stuff written by 13 year olds.

legendary bum · Feb 5, 2011

intriguing topic

Glorious trash

perfectpawn

Kitty Pryde

i luv you giant bear statue

HigherDef

much better than regular HD

perfectpawn

underthecity

Finestkind

perfectpawn

The Lonely One

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

perfectpawn

dangerousbill

Retired Illuminatus

dangerousbill

Retired Illuminatus

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

movieman

movieman

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

Libbie

Worst song played on ugliest guitar

movieman

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

movieman

muddy_shoes

whacko

Keeping up with the class

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

legendary bum

needs to change her sheets