PULP PAPERBACK STYLE

Vintage paperback books had some great covers. I imagine they did a lot to sell the story to potential buyers. But...a good cover isn't enough. To really clinch the sale you need....

....you need a good back cover. The buyer wants to know if the writer can live up to the promise made on the front. In this case the front is pure poetry:

Fran's filmy attire made it necessary for her to remain behind the door until I had entered and she had closed it, secluding us for the night.

That's a great sentence. In lesser hands it might have started with the prosaic, "Fran remained behind the door...", but this writer knew what the reader wanted. He opened with the infinitely more atmospheric, "Fran's filmy attire..." Instantly we're brought to the thrilling moment when a girl who cares about us opens the door. 

Unfortunately the meandering blurb on the back doesn't live up to the front. 

Here's (above) a case where the back copy is better than the front:

Completely nude, she posed for the scandalous painting. Her affairs were the talk of the Congo.

It's hard to imagine the whole Congo being scandalized by anything in a painting, but who cares? You imagine drums spreading the message to every corner of the jungle that some crazy white woman with a cat posed buck naked for a picture. The author casts a spell that makes it all seem plausible.

 I think the same author did this teaser (above) for another book. Man, he had the knack!

The author didn't intend it, but I prefer to think of Forbidden Nectar (above) as the blonde's name. We're assured that when a man gets the taste of Forbidden Nectar, there's no turning back. 

Boy, the writer likes purple prose. Forbidden Nectar was on her way into the bubbling pit of destructive passion, while Forbidden Nectar's man was being sucked down into the whirlpool of destructive lusts. Imagine what it would be like if ordinary people talked like that in the street.

Geez, some of the words are beautiful but the plot sounds unfocused.

I've heard that college professors moonlighted as freelance writers for lurid books, and  these blurbs (above) seem to confirm that. Imagine the savage passion summoned up by academic rhetoric like:

Fearing community disgrace, she's chosen him for her consort, one to whom she could go for necessary affection.

Here's (above) a story full of Thrust about Maria, whose middle name was trouble, a real tropical hussy. The book promises to tell how hussies like Maria are made...what they do to people. It all sounds very steamy and sexy...but wait a minute...Maria turns out to be a hurricane, and the story is about The San Francisco Weather Bureau! Haw!

I like the title. It indicates that the story is not about something as prosaic as a storm, rather it's about the infinitely weird and menacing "StorM."