• Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
  • Search Site

Polari Magazine

  • Home
  • Up Front
    • Editorial
    • Clementine: The Living Fashion Doll
    • Polari Safari
    • WTF? Friday
    • Bulletin Board
    • Polari Facts
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • Features
    • Gallery
    • Opinion
    • Heroes & Villains
  • Community
    • Oral Histories
    • Coming Out Stories
    • Relationships
    • IDAHO
    • LGBT History Month
    • Blogs
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Film and Television
    • Music
    • Stage
    • Visual Arts
    • Classics: Books
    • Classics: Film and Television
    • Classics: Music
  • About
    • About Polari Magazine
    • Contributors
    • Contact

You are here: Polari Magazine / Books / Hip Pocket Sleaze • John Harrison

Hip Pocket Sleaze • John Harrison

01 Dec 2011 / Comments Off / in Books/by Tim Bennett-Goodman

Hip Pocket Sleaze ★★★★★
John Harrison
391 pages • Headpress • October, 2011 [PB]
………………………………………………………………………………………….

Hot (as it were) on the heels of their recent fiction offering, The Hellhound Sample  (reviewed here) comes a non-fiction work from the publishing house Headpress entitled Hip Pocket Sleaze: The Lurid World of Vintage Adult Paperbacks,  by John Harrison.

This compendious work contains everything (and to my taste, rather more) than one could ever want to know about the esoteric, not to say erotic, world of ‘pulp fiction’. This term was coined in the USA to describe fiction magazines from the 1920’s to ‘40s which then transferred to paperbacks. They appeared from the ‘40s (to feed the insatiable appetite of wartime GIs for something spicy) through to the late ‘70s

The work is undeniably an impeccably researched and comprehensive labour of love (or should that be lust?) aimed at a specialist niche market which, at £15.99 a throw, caters to connoisseurs of the genre who are apparently prepared to pay quite dearly for their elicit pleasures.
In his introduction, Harrison explains that his own fascination with adult fiction began in 1978 when, as a fourteen-year-old, he frequented a secondhand bookshop in a sleazy area of Melbourne near where he grew up. It had a backroom to which he was never allowed access. Obviously the forbidden pleasures within must have exercised a profound effect upon his adolescent mind and this led him as an adult to a lifetime of collecting and cataloguing it, the results of which he now shares with the world in this meticulous, scholarly and probably definitive exploration of the form.

As he himself acknowledges, the fascination of the genre lies as much, if not more, in the cover designs than the contents, although he admits that several authors managed to produce work of surprising quality in this limiting format. Cover artwork is illustrated throughout the book, sadly in black-and-white only, though a flavour of the original garish colours can be gleaned from the montage on the book’s cover.

Neither the covers nor the contents are subtle in any degree, which presumably was the whole point. These works were designed for instant gratification and Harrison freely admits that their purpose was deliberately titillatory and largely masturbatory.

I was intrigued to note that the first section of the book, Strange Sisters & Queer Daddies, is devoted to gay erotica, which formed a surprisingly large portion of the early output. Discussing author, Victor J Banis, Harrison says: “Banis wrote a series of very funny 007 spoofs featuring an effeminate gay spy. Known as The Man From C.A.M.P. series, these twelve titles are amongst the most sought-after by collectors of gay erotica, with their combination of 1960s homosexual cliché images (some traits of the character can even be found in Mike Myers’ Austin Powers persona) and the vibrant, pop art influence of Robert Bonfil’s cover illustrations.”

Lesbian erotica also formed a significant part of the genre, mostly to satiate a straight male audience, although Ann Bannon’s novels, inspired by lesbian writers such as Radclyffe Hall, are apparently well-regarded as literature. The book includes a lengthy interview with Ann Bannon, which offers a fascinating insight into the process of writing lesbian pulp fiction

Indeed, interviews with several surviving pulp fiction authors punctuate the book which, along with selected bibliographies and a comprehensive index, will make this work a must-have for aficionados of the genre which, along with gay, lesbian and trans themes, includes fetishism, voyeurism, sadism and sado-masochism, bestiality, paedophilia; slave plantation, blaxpoiltation and interracial, prison and concentration camp, sci-fi, easy riders and leather, orgies, satanism and many other minority interests. There is also a section dedicated to classic smut and film rags. In short, all human life is here (though not necessarily always in its most uplifting of manifestations).

Noel Coward famously remarked on the potency of cheap music and Harrison’s comprehensive overview of paperback sleaze is certainly a testament to the potency of cheap fiction, sadly now superseded by the ubiquity of internet porn.

On the subject of potency, Harrison makes a very appropriate, though presumably unintentional pun when, in reviewing The Love Clinic by Gil Hara, he writes de rigor instead of de rigueur. I’m perfectly sure that inducing stiffness in his readership was precisely Hara’s intention, as it must have been all other writers who inhabit this curious historical cul-de-sac of fiction.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Tags: gay fiction, john harrison, lesbian fiction, vintage adult paperbacks

Related Posts

Did you like this entry?
Here are a few more posts that might be interesting for you.
Related Posts
An interview with Jonathan Kemp
Obituary • Gore Vidal
Bounce

Search Polari

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

About Polari Magazine

Polari Magazine is an LGBT arts and culture magazine that explores the subculture by looking at what is important to the people who are in it. It’s about the lives we lead, not the lifestyles we’re supposed to lead.

Its content is informed & insightful, and features a diverse range of writers from every section of the community. Its intent is to help LGBT readers learn about their own heritage and to sustain a link between the present and the past.

Polari is designed to nurture the idea of community, whether that be social and political, or artistic and creative. It is your magazine, whether you want to read it, or whether you want to get involved in it, if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer.

Polari Magazine is all these: it's a gay online magazine; it's a gay and lesbian online magazine; it's an LGBT arts and culture magazine. Ultimately, it is a queer magazine.

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

Twitter

Tweets by @PolariMagazine

Archive

  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
© Copyright - Polari Magazine - Wordpress Theme by Kriesi.at
  • scroll to top
  • Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Website Privacy & Cookies