Showing posts with label Burt Hirschfeld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burt Hirschfeld. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Provincetown


Provincetown, by Burt Hirschfeld
June, 1977  Bantam Books

By the late ‘70s Burt Hirschfeld was still trading off between hardcover publications and paperback originals. Provincetown was one of the latter, sporting a nice cover that opened into an even better inlay (below). Plotwise the story is like a longer variation on Hirschfeld’s earlier Acapulco, in that it’s about a film company coming onto location and all the soap opera dynamics that ensue. But Provincetown is longer, slightly more risque, and also features a biker as one of the (many) characters, which is pretty cool. But then Hirschfeld also wrote Bonnie, so he was familiar with the biking scene. 

If I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect Burt Hirschfeld had been reading some William Hegner. While Hirschfeld’s affected prose style is still apparent in Provincetown (ie, sentences that keep elaborating on themselves), Hirschfeld tells a lot of the tale via dialog, a style more used by Hegner, with the characters expounding back and forth to one another. There’s also a slightly more raunchy tone, but still nowhere in the league of Hegner. Actually, most of the sex is off-page in Provincetown, but there’s a definite focus on oral sex and even gay sex (the biker, you see, goes out of his way to be mean and cruel to convince himself that he isn’t attracted to men…which totally isn’t cliched at all, folks!). This “raunchy talk,” coupled with the Hollywood vibe, just brings to mind the contemporary work of William Hegner. 

It just isn’t as good as Hegner. Here Burt Hirschfeld, who by 1977 had penned scads of trash fiction novels, proves out Dean Koontz’s dictum: that “Big Sexy” authors will eventually reach burnout. Such would seem to be the case here, as Hirschfeld appears to be going through the motions in Provincetown. Perhaps I’m thinking this due to the various means he resorts to in filling up the 300 pages; there will be periodic faux-newspaper clippings about the movie, or interviews with the characters that take place after the novel’s events, and none of this stuff does anything to add to the plot. Also, the large cast of characters or course resembles Hirschfeld’s biggest success, Fire Island, only none of the ones here are as memorable as the characters in that earlier book. 

And the plot is kind of a mess. Provincetown is about a film company that heads to Provincetown in Cape Cod to film a movie titled…you guessed it, Provincetown. This movie is based on a novel by a guy named Tom Reynolds (one of the many characters in the book), which is about an older woman falling in love with a younger man. I mean that’s it. Yet the director of the flick, a former bigtime Hollywood talent named “Little John” O’Day, is certain this plot is going to be box office dynamite. However Pike, the creepy producer of the movie, has his own plans, and as the shooting progresses Pike starts demanding that more sex and violence be added to the film. It all just comes off as very hard to buy; I mean we’re to believe that O’Day, who goes back to the old studio days, would be willing to go on location and shoot a film in which several roles haven’t even been cast yet. I found this unbelievable. 

As usual for a novel with a large cast of characters, the opening pages are a bit bumpty until you figure out who’s who. And as with Fire Island, not all the characters are truly integral to the story; for example, the stuff with Mario the yacht captain could’ve easily been cut. But so far as the main characters go, there’s O’Day, 60 and concerned his best work is decades behind him, hoping to get his name back with this film; Vicky Pierce, a onetime box office star of famous beauty who herself has retired from the movie biz and is looking to Provincetown as a way back into the big leagues; Sexton, an alcoholic painter given to street fighting who himself was once involved with the movie business; Sandy Hayden, hotstuff young wannabe starlet who will screw anyone who helps advance her career; Kiley, the aforementioned biker whose savagery is a mask for his homosexuality; and finally Tom Reynolds, author of the novel the film is based on who hopes to become rich and famous. 

There are sundry other characters in addition to these, some of them more important than others, some lost in the shuffle: chief in this regard would be Joe Crespi, a willowy young “actor’s actor” who can’t handle the action scenes producer Pike insists on adding to the script. Oh, and Crespi’s gay, too, as we learn in his intro, but he sort of disappears from the novel after that until midway through. Only to return late in the book where he is the sudden object of Kiley’s wrath…not just because Crespi is the star of the movie (which Kiley feels he himself should be), but because Crespi is gay, and of course that just works up the in-the-closet Kiley all the more. 

The first quarter of Provincetown isn’t like most other Burt Hirschfeld novels I’ve read. It’s more brutal and crime-pulp in vibe, first with Sexton getting into a savage street fight and then later Kiley, in Greenwich Village, trying to get back his stolen chopper. This part is more grim than the typical Hirschfeld fare, with Kiley first finding a notorious area slut and “banging” her all night to get her docile and subservient, then using her to ensnare the rival biker who stole his chopper. It’s not overly violent but Kiley does toss someone off a rooftop…actually, two people, in one of the more surprising turns of events. But at least Hirschfeld here lets us know Kiley is a savage and not to be trucked with. 

Which makes Kiley’s mid-novel retcon into a wanna be star quite hard to buy. With his muscles and brawn often noted, it’s not hard to see Kiley protrayed as Big William Smith in the movie of Provincetown that plays in your mind. It’s all just a little ridiculous, though. O’Day and company arrive in Provincetown to shoot the movie, and Pike starts insisting on more violence and action. Somehow Kiley, who is hiding in Provincetown after committing murder in Greenwich Village, gets the job as the stunt man on the film. I mean, he’s not a professional stuntman, not in any union…he’s just a muscular guy they hire off the street to handle the on-film action stuff that lead actor Joe Crespi can’t. At least someone on the film crew might have started thinking about liability. 

But from this, Kiley begins to develop dreams of stardom, and begins demeaning himself to gain O’Day’s favor and prove himself as “the better leading man” for the movie. And also he’s got the simmering hots for Crespi over the whole gay thing. Oh and Kiley also becomes the thrall of a Rona Barrett type who comes to Provincetown to drudge up some gossip, but she instead finds Kiley at a party and takes him into an empty bathroom to suck him off. As I say, there’s a definite oral focus to Provincetown, not to mention a part where Kiley unleashes his “monster,” “bull”-sized member and sodomizes a poor character after beating him to a pulp. “He must’ve enjoyed that part of it,” a sensitive character later remarks on the sodomy, given that the victim happens to be gay. 

Now that I think of it, there’s hardly any straight-up screwing in Provincetown. Sexton, who seems to be Hirschfeld’s “main” character, has his chance with former box-office babe Vicky Pierce, but he’s “busted” and no longer able to get it up (due to his drinking or his general pessimism with life – it’s all the same for Hirschfeld), so he ends up dining at the Y. Again, the oral focus! There’s a whole lotta sucking, licking, and lapping going on in Provincetown. But anyway I guess being an alcoholic beach bum who runs an art shop is the way to pick up the ladies, as they’re throwing themselves at Sexton throughout the novel: first Vicky, then later a hippie free spirit type in her very early 20s who latches onto him, trying to prove he’s “not so tough.” 

Speaking of which, despite being published in 1977 there’s actually more of an “early ‘70s” vibe to Provincetown, which of course is fine by me. Other than an errant mention of disco, the soundtrack of the big party scene toward the end of the book is the “throbbing beat” of the Rolling Stones, and also there’s a part where O’Day and Pike meet in what appears to be an acid rock club, complete with strobe lights on the walls and dancing half-nude women. The drugs are also more early ‘70s than late, with grass being the most commonly used drug in Provincetown. In fact I don’t think there’s a single mention of coke, which seems strange for a 1977 book about Hollywood characters. Indeed, in a total early ‘70s bit that aforementioned 21 year-old gal plies Sexton with joints, forcing them on him, and the marijuana defeats not only Sexton’s alcoholism but it also helps him to, uh, “get it up.” 

But the lack of coke and the feeling that a lot of this is imitation William Hegner could however just be more indication that Burt Hirschfeld was falling behind on the times. While I enjoyed the novel for the most part, there was just a feeling here that Hirschfeld was going through the motions and delivering the type of book he thought was expected of him. It’s also interesting that the book’s plot is so similar to the earlier Acapulco, only as mentioned this one’s longer, and also has those gimmicky bits where Hirschfeld will fill pages with an interview with, say, upcoming starlet Sandy Hayden, or another with novelist Tom Reynolds. Which reminds me – Hirschfeld’s plotting is also kind of jacked up. Sandy Hayden is introduced as the mistress of Reynolds, and he’s brought her here to Provincetown for some action on the side (despite also bringing along his wife – and she’s another of the many supporting characters, a bombshell beauty with the mind of a prude). 

But somehow Sandy ends up with the lecherous press agent Pike has hired for the movie, and it’s almost as if Hirschfeld’s forgotten that she was introduced as being Reynolds’s kept woman. Regardless, Sandy’s storyline is a mirror of Kiley’s, in that she feels she should be a big star and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there. So, like Kiley, we have a lot of parts where she tries to catch O’Day’s eye, so that he’ll cast her in the movie…the movie that he’s already filming. It just all seems so goofy and unbelievable. Not to mention that O’Day, in his own scenes, is shown to be a bitter old cynic who doubts his ability to do anything worthwhile; he’s so similar to Sexton that the two are easily confused, particularly in the early pages. 

Now that I think of this, it seems Hirschfeld’s theme was clear: the oldschool studio-days film people are bitter, cyncial, lost, and, in the case of Sexton, alcoholic. They want to get back into the bigtime but don’t know how. The newschool actors, ie Sandy Hayden and Kiley, are willing to do whatever it takes to make it – in Kiley’s case, to kill, in Sandy’s case, to screw whoever will help her career. So in other words, the theme is pretty similar to most of the other “New Hollywood” trash paperbacks that were published in the era. But man. If only Hollywood people like this still existed…or at least were the ones who were making movies today. 

The novel works up to a nightmarish conclusion, with yet another main actor in the film getting raped – but this one is also murdered. This spirals us into a too-quick finale in which fate dispenses some justice…and also again via those egregious “industry articles” we learn that Mario, the fishing captain, is thrust into stardom due to his role in Provincetown. WTF? Also Sexton suddenly seems to have a plot that is separate from the main novel; the book concludes with him going around Europe with his new 21 year-old gal and finding himself or something. Meanwhile the stuff on Provincetown the film is almost rushed through. 

Overall this was a fairly quick read, and entertaining due to the fact that Burt Hirschfeld seemed to be pushing himself in new directions. But the center didn’t hold at times, lending the impression that Hirschfeld didn’t put as much of an effort into the writing of Provincetown. 

Here’s the uncredited inlay art spread: 


Thursday, July 30, 2020

Special People


Special People, by Hugh Barron
April, 1978  NEL Books

Okay, now that we’ve all taken a moment to appreciate that cover photo… Seriously though, this British paperback original has long been a mystery to me. As every schoolkid knows, “Hugh Barron” was a pseudonym used by Burt Hirschfeld early in his career; he seems to have dropped it upon the success of his 1970 blockbuster Fire Island, which was published under his own name. But then there’s this 1978 “Hugh Barron” book, only published in England; we know it’s by Hirschfeld, as it was reprinted in hardcover in 1988 – again only in the UK – under Hirschfeld’s name.

I picked this one up many years ago, before the blog, shortly after I learned of Hirschfeld’s work – probably around 2009, after I discovered Cindy On Fire at a used bookstore. I’m glad I did, as it appears Special People has become pretty scarce. I’ve often wondered what the story was behind it, but put off reading it because, per the back cover copy, it was about a football player, and I’m just not into football – and also, the back cover only refers to “football,” not specifying for British readers that it’s American football, not soccer. And there was also that 1978 date that put me off; I prefer my trash fiction from the late ‘60s to mid ‘70s. But now that I’ve actually read the book, I can confirm two things: it’s not much about football at all, and it was clearly written in the late ‘60s, probably 1969.

The ostensible protagonist, Cotton Tate, is indeed a famous running back for fictional football team the Truckers (apparently based out of New York), but there’s only one “football scene” late in the novel, and the narrative is more concerned with the large cast of characters that congregates around Cotton’s nightclub in the fashionable East Side of Manhattan. There’s a bunch of them, too, meaning that Cotton himself is lost in the shuffle; his subplot has it that he’s in debt to a mobster type, and is being requested to fumble plays and the like so as to affect the point spread. He borrowed the money to get his club, The Nubiles, and he’s desperate to maintain his lifestyle – secretly 37, which we’re told is ancient for a pro footballer, Cotton has a wife and kids back home but lives on his own, picking up women left and right. As described he seems to a Joe Namath type, only with “orange” hair.

Cotton’s a bastard for sure, a real love ‘em and leave ‘em type who walks over lesser mortals. The only part where we get to see any humanity is a brief bit where he visits home and we see that his young son looks up to him – and that his wife is quite happy with Cotton out prowling around, as she prefers sleeping alone! But regardless of whether he’s a hero or antihero, Cotton Tate doesn’t show up much, hence the subplot of him being in danger with the football commission and such doesn’t resonate with the reader. The sprawl of supporting characters is just too large, and the reader is left wanting a center, something to hold it all together. Only Cotton’s club, The Nubiles, performs in this capacity, with the titular “special people” being the screwed-up regulars who frequent the place, which is on First Avenue in the Sixties.

There are a lot of them, but Hirschfeld does his usual admirable job of juggling the large cast of characters; in this way the novel comes off like a prototype of Fire Island. First we have Deke Mann, a former PR guy in his 30s who now works as a writer for a TV talk show. While he starts off as a minor character – and an increasingly annoying one at that – Deke turns out to be pretty much the protagonist of the tale, as the narrative focuses on his sort of redemption through love. But for the majority of the tale his plot revolves around his increasing plunge into despair; divorced, with a young son he only sees once a week, Deke gets drunk a lot and starts fights he knows he can’t win, apparently looking to be beaten up. Eventually he starts stalking one of the female characters in the book – a pursuit that eventually pans out for him, #metoo be damned!

Kate is that female character, a hotstuff young babe with a heart of gold who lives with a small-chested wildchild named Libby. Kate initially falls in love with Cotton; she’s just one of his many one-night stands, but to her it seems to be something else, and she pursues him, only to be crushed. From here she ends up dating Cotton’s lawyer(!?), another doomed romance. Meanwhile Deke meets Kate in the Nubiles, falls for her, and starts making a nuissance of himself; there’s a bizarre sequence where he sees Kate looking at an expensive dress in a store window, and he goes in and buys it for her, even though he’s only ever said hello to her. She of course turns down the “nice gesture,” thereby setting off an also-bizarre subplot where Deke keeps carrying around the damn dress and trying to give it to her. Only when Kate realizes that this slouchy dude with the “angry eyes” and a propensity for stalking is really a sweetheart does she accept the gift.

Speaking of Libby, she’s another character who starts off as minor but gradually gets a little more focus. Her storyline seems to be a precursor of Cindy On Fire, in that she starts off as a partygirl bimbo but descends into drug-induced madness; there’s even a part where she literally runs from an orgy, same as Cindy would in her novel a few years later. She’s the daughter of some famous actress or something, just a total jet-setting nympho without a care in the world; one of the many subplots has it that the Nubiles bartender lets his mobster pals know when certain girls are at the club, and the mobsters send over guys to loot their apartments while they’re gone. When this happens to Libby and Kate’s apartment, Libby laughs it off. Her heart is broken by that same bartender, though, which leads her into a spiral of sex and drugs and swinging and whatnot, with her subplot mirroring Deke’s in that she finally finds redemption through love and understanding and all that jazz.

The novel seems to occur in a bland continnuum, Hirscheld for once failing to bring his world to life. There are hardly any topical references to the era, other than some of the outlandishly mod outfits Cotton Tate wears. This brings me to the matter of dating the manuscript. An early reference to Jimi Hendrix means Special People couldn’t have been written earlier than 1967, as that’s when Jimi came into the spotlight. There are also a few references to The Beatles which help pinpoint the date: we’re told someone says a lyric from “the new Beatles song,” and later someone mentions “All You Need Is Love,” implying that this might’ve been the earlier-referenced song. But late in the novel Libby, in a drug frenzy, hallucinates that the Blue Meanies are chasing her(!!!), and this would have to date the novel to late 1968, when The Yellow Submarine was released in the US. Another factor that makes me think the novel was written in early 1969 is a minor character states there are “no black quarterbacks” in football, a statement which was no longer true by 1969.

The Jimi mention occurs in one of my favorite parts of the book, if for no other reason than it’s a sad premonition of the average mentality of some of today’s “special people.” Deke ends up hooking up with some lady in her 30s at the Nubiles; she’s a proto social justice warrior, ranting and raving that America is a racist society founded on a lie. She also proudly announces that she’s had sex with several black men, just to prove that she herself isn’t a racist. (Little does she realize that this too will one day be considered racist.) She takes Deke back to her place, where Deke is shocked to discover the woman has left her seven year-old daughter alone (Hirschfeld masterfully calls out the hypocrisies of his characters with just a few subtle asides). She plays Jimi on the stereo – I guess because he’s black and all, but it’s not like Jimi really ever made “being black” a major part of his identity – and eventually she and Deke have some off-page sex (the majority of the sex is off-page, with the few on-page instances relayed in Hirscheld’s usual metaphorical prose of “cresting waves” and the like).

Unfortunately, there’s not much meat to the tale – it’s just a bunch of screwed-up characters congregating at a vaguely-descibed Manhattan nightclub. There are other characters besides the ones I’ve mentioned, like an older lady who looks young who sleeps around with a host of Nubles personages, all so as to gather “research” for the trashy novel her husband wants to write! This part could be its own novel, as the lady eventually is fashioned into a Jackie Susann type who will be positioned as the true author of the trashy tome. But nothing much comes of this subplot, like so many of the other subplots, save for a memorable bit where the lady is raped by a pair of over-eager football players…a situation the lady soon begins to enjoy!

As mentioned the football stuff isn’t that integral to the plot, other than Cotton’s woes with the commission – woes which are quickly dispensed thanks to a call to his lawyer. But it’s hard to give much of a shit about the guy because he’s presented as such an arrogant demigod of perfection, which is probably the same as what could be said about any real-life football star. He learns though that he’s gotten over his head with the mobsters who loaned him the money to buy the Nubiles, thus he will still have to affect the point spreads and etc to skew the betting numbers, but there’s no resolution to the storyline as the novel just sort of ends, so far as Cotton’s story goes: we see him playing a big game, giving his best, then we jump over to Deke and Kate, who have decided to leave New York and head off into a happily after ever.

The most interesting thing about Special People remains the question on why it was only published in the UK, even again under Hirschfeld’s own name. Perhaps Pyramid, the main publisher of his “Hugh Barron” work, just rejected it, as it must be said the novel isn’t very good. I mean it’s not bad, it’s just that it simmers for a couple hundred pages and never even reaches a low boil. And you don’t care about any of the characters. But then there’s the possibility Hirschfeld himself wasn’t happy with it, and maybe it’s what he was writing when Fire Island hit the bestseller list and thus he decided to postpone his “Hugh Barron” material. But then that again raises the question of why the novel was still published in the UK.

I guess we’ll never know. Otherwise though Special People isn’t up to the caliber of the other “Hugh Barron” books, all of which had great period details and more-gripping plots. However this one certainly had the best cover of them all! Now let’s get back to appreciating it…

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Fun City


Fun City, by Hugh Barron
August, 1968  Pyramid Books

Burt Hirschfeld poses as “Hugh Barron” in another of his paperback originals for Pyramid Books; this one, while not perfect, might be my favorite Barron yet. I was in the mood for a piece of trash fiction set in the swinging psychedelic ‘60s, and for the most part Fun City fit the bill perfectly. Unfortunately though just as much of it is inconsequential “city politics” boredom that seems lifted from the earlier Tilt!.

In fact, parts of Fun City are almost identical to Tilt!, though I enjoyed this book a lot more. While Tilt! started off promisingly in the acid rock clubs of California before becoming mired in a belabored “evils of politics” storyline, Fun City at least still remembers to give us the good stuff, with many scenes featuring the ‘60s jetset in all its vapid glory. Hirschfeld well captures the over-the-top pretensions of the era, from arrogantly serious “artists” to would-be fashion kingpins. And I love how the back cover informs us that this “caustic novel” is “as vivid as an LSD trip”!

Our hero is Eddie Watson, a very traditional Hirschfeld protagonist. He’s a bitter, 38-year-old alchoholic who was once a trailblazing journalist. But then his paper folded and Eddie spiralled into a period of drunkeness. He’s got an on-again, off-again girlfriend named Molly Purdy who is of course pretty and well-endowed (practically every single woman in Fun City is stated as having big boobs, by the way). But Molly, who works as a reporter herself, has finally gotten sick of Eddie’s uselessness. She loves him and pines for him, but he refuses to see his potential and wallows instead in self-pity. That being said, she doesn’t mind throwing him a free lay every once in a while. 

Speaking of sex, there’s a bit of it in Fun City, from orgies to romantic couplings to even gay sex, but Hirschfeld is in his lyrical mode this time. The sex scenes are written almost identically to the Hirschfeld-esque sex material Dean Koontz capably spoofed in Writing Popular Fiction. For example, here’s what passes for a sex scene later in the book, as Eddie engages with another lovely young lady who pines for him:

All the swelling desire. The pendulous need from out of some foreign and mysterious place, a call that drew them together in a tidal wave natural and harmonious, all rhythms easy, swinging. Time ceased and there was only the twilight of loving, the stroke of flesh against flesh, of membranes softer than soft, the wetness deep and sensuous, drawing endlessly on reservoirs so long untapped…

All right! I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but it sure sounds hot!!

Through Molly Eddie is brought into the world of New York politics. Eddie is fascinated by Charles Harrison, an altruistic millionaire known for his charities and acts of good will around the world. Harrison’s having a party in his deluxe Manhattan penthouse and Molly’s invited. There Eddie meets the man himself, a graying-haired paragon of manly virtue who likes Eddie’s cynicism and indeed is familiar with Eddie’s work for the paper. Harrison tells Eddie that he loves New York and plans to run for Mayor. He offers Eddie the job of becoming his campaign manager.

Meanwhile Hirschfeld takes us into the swinging jetset via Lilly Harrison, hot-to-trot young wife of Charles. She has a body to kill for and enjoys showing it off with the latest mod fashions. She’s vivacious and obsessed with being famous and comes off way too much like a vapid, modern-day Reality TV star. Eddie wonders why Charles is even with her, but gradually we’ll see there’s a strange bond which unites the couple. For Charles Harrison, you won’t be surprised at all to learn, has several skeletons in his own closet, from switch-hitting to group sex, not to mention ties to various underworld figures. This is revealed rather early on, but our hero Eddie doesn’t discover it until near novel’s end.

Lilly, apparently Hirschfeld’s attempt at writing a Jacqueline Susann-type antiheroine, is ultimately too listlessly self-involved to be very memorable; not to use the word yet again, but “vapid” is the perfect description for her. She yearns to be world-famous, but she’s such a cipher that you neither care for her nor despise her. She lacks the catty cruelty you’d expect from a character like this. Rather, the character who more closely captures this antiheroine nature would be Hester Quinn, basically the Eddie to Lilly’s Charles, a “birdlike” celebrity hanger-on who knows all the hip people in Manhattan and serves as Lilly’s adviser on how to become a mover and shaker in the jetset world. This includes wearing revealing clothes and having sex with random famous men.

Center stage in these jetset portions is Marcello, Hester’s Italian “discovery” who plans to take the fashion world by storm. Flamingly gay, Marcello storms and struts through the novel, stealing every scene despite being a walking cliché. (He’s also, we eventually learn, really just a dude named Victor Mellulo, from Wheeling, West Virginia!) Hirschfeld provides several scenes in which the jetset cavort at the latest Marcello happening, from an art exhibit to a fashion show to a Warhol-esque porn film he’s directed – one which leads to an orgy among the audience. Molly, bringing to mind the heroine of a later Hirschfeld novel, literally runs away from this orgy.

And that again is the problem with Fun City. Hirschfeld seeks to capture the “psychedelic salons and beauty-bugged bedrooms” of the “swinging, go-go world of New York City” (per the back cover copy), but he sabotages it with his cynical characters. Eddie hates this world of artifice, Molly distrusts it. And those who do live in it, like Lilly, Marcello, and Hester, are so cipher-like in their narcissim that the reader is unable to vicariously enjoy it through them. The “acid-rock” nightclubs and mod fashion happenings are capably brought to life, as are the mostly-nude, sexually-voracious gals who flock to this underworld in their “psychedelic blue” lipstick, but it’s all undermined by protagonists who yearn for the straight-laced world of yesteryear.

This was the same thing that bogged down Tilt!, by the way, as well as the “politics” material. In Fun City as well we read seemingly-endless sequences in which Charles Harrison will filibuster this or that New York bigwig. Not only is it rendered moot given that these are one-off characters he meets with, but his speechifying about how to make New York great again comes off as so much padding. Clearly this is Hirschfeld’s attempt at eventually pulling the rug out from under us, as Charles is later revealed to be just as “sick” as his wife Lilly; in the course of the novel he cruises a gay area and picks up some dude (later beating him in his shame), then later on he picks up a pair of young girls and takes them back to their place for some nondescript lovin’.

But Hirschfeld does bring to life psychedelic New York City. There’s an enjoyable part where Eddie sees Lilly go off with some new stud and rushes after her, drafting Hester to lead him to her, Marcello tagging along. They go to the Lower East Side, first stopping in the headshop of The Czar, then head on over to a hippie “crash pad” where legions of teenagers have sex on the scuzzy, garbage-strewn floors. Hirschfeld really goes for it in this scene, which culminates with Eddie finding Lilly in an LSD daze, meditating in the lotus position while her latest stud, a playboy named Tolan, whips some other girl who has displeased him.

We also get a lot of Hirschfeld’s typical soap opera-style melodrama: Molly as mentioned constantly spurns Eddie, only to later welcome him back to her apartment with open legs. And Eddie promises to quit the booze and devote himself to both her and Harrison’s campaign. Instead he blows off dates with Molly and gets drunk a bunch of times. After the latest Molly breakup Eddie happens to meet a young social worker named Sarah Jane Parker (yep, she’s busty too!). In a complete disregard for character depth, Hirschfeld has this gal openly throwing herself at Eddie soon after meeting him, offering to make him a meal in her apartment.

Eddie I forgot to mention is an annoying asshole. He eats the meal, has a drink, and tells the girl she’s practically a slut! She’s only in her twenties and he feels she should straighten up and stop bringing strange men back to her place. He leaves without even taking her up on her open offer for sex…then “coincidentally” meets her again during a too-long scene where Harrison filibusts at a school in Harlem. In the ensuing riot (started by Black Panthers), Eddie runs into Sarah again. The two eventually become an item (the “sex scene” above is between Eddie and Sarah), but Molly is still on the sidelines. She’s found out how corrupt Harrison is – he’s almost penniless and indebted to the mob, who funds his campaign – and Molly intends to tap into wealth via Eddie.

The finale of Fun City plays out on an unexpected sequence of turnarounds; Eddie, hearing the truth of Harrison’s underworld activities, hunts the man down in a gay bar. For his troubles Eddie is almost beaten to death by a gang of gay stooges at Harrison’s command(!). Eddie manages to escape them, stealing the gun of one and shooting him before escaping. But he finds no salvation in Molly; when Eddie refuses to play ball and go back to Harrison – Molly wants Eddie to keep working for the man so they can strike it rich when he wins the election – she grabs Eddie’s gun, puts it on him, and calls Harrison to come get him!

After yet another escape Eddie finds true salvation with Sarah, still treating her like shit as he eats breakfast with her, his pistol at hand. The final face-to-face with Harrison isn’t exciting at all, playing more on a suspense angle than the Sharpshooter capoff I wanted. Eddie has gotten hold of some photos of Lilly in compromising positions, and uses these as blackmail to get Harrison to call of his dogs and to drop out of the race. After which it’s back to Sarah, who tells Eddie they should leave the city together. And Eddie has finally gotten an idea for a novel; he’s going to write about these very events, which will make for a surefire bestseller(!?).

Hirschfeld’s writing has the same positives and negatives as ever. He keeps the story moving, brings us into this world, and makes us care for the characters. But at the same time the plot is a bit plodding and the politicking becomes grating. Also Hirschfeld’s affected style is firmly in place – you know, how he takes a sentence, expands upon it greatly, going on and on with it, getting to the heart of it, the core, working it up into a theme, a construction of depth and meaning. Polishing it. Elaborating it. Hammering it out, over and over again, endlessly, infinitely. Until the reader. Cannot take it. Anymore. (You get the drift….)

The core of later Hirschfeld novels can be found here; the entire “psychedelic hippie hell” section in the Lower East Side for example would return in Father Pig, where Hirschfeld made it seem even more hellish. And as mentioned there are many paralells with Cindy On Fire. One thing missing this time is the Hollywood starlet character ususally typical of the “Hugh Barron” books.

Anyway, despite the affected style and the sometimes-plodding pace, Fun City is really vintage Burt Hirschfeld, and did the job of providing the piece of go-go ‘60s pulp fiction I was hoping for.

Here’s the cover of the NEL edition:


And here’s the cover of the Dell edition from 1984, published under Hirschfeld’s name (interestingly, the back cover copy of this one spins it as a hardboiled yarn):

Monday, June 29, 2015

Kingpin


Kingpin, by Burt Hirschfeld and Edwin Fadiman
October, 1989  St. Martin's Press

One of the last novels Burt Hirschfeld published, Kingpin first came out in a hardcover edition in 1988; I don’t know much about co-author Edwin Fadiman other than that he himself published a few mystery and non-genre novels in the ‘60s and ‘70s, most of them paperback originals. I’m also not sure on how much these two authors collaborated, as the novel reads like everything else I’ve yet read by Hirschfeld.

Eschewing the trash fiction he specialized in during in the ‘70s, Hirschfeld here goes for more of a thriller or at least suspense sort of deal, though it’s still a slow-burner a la Fire Island and Hirschfeld’s other trashy tomes. The cast of characters is also much reduced, whittled down to a mere three: Jack Keveney, a tough New York narcotics cop, Napoleon Cruz, cocaine kingpin of the fictional South America country of Sixaola, and Nina Fuentes, the hitwoman/junior kingpin who becomes the lover of both. The novel spans decades, charting the rise of the two male protagonists, who both come from hardscrabble origins and make something of themselves.

The hardcover edition sported a blurb by none other than Harold Robbins, who called Kingpin “my kind of book.” And it really is, as one could almost look at Kingpin as a sequel in all but name to Robbins’s The Adventurers. Not that it features any of the same characters, but Sixaola is Adventurers protagonist Dax Xenos’s homeland of Corteguay in all but name. Hell, it could even be the same place at that, as we’re told it has gone through the usual turmoil of a banana republic, culminating in the ‘80s as one of the central hubs through which cocaine is imported into the States.

Napoleon gets the most text space of all of them, which is unfortunate, as I found his story the most uninteresting, not to mention the most cliched. Starting life as the penniless waif of a prostitute mother, Napoleon latches on to the drug czar of his little hometown, becoming the man’s errand boy. But Napoleon in his all-consuming desire to become someone is merciless, and after showing off his sadistic skills in getting money owed his boss he is promoted to a sort of enforcer status. But after taking out the man who is abusing Napoleon’s heroin-addicted mother, Napoleon sets his sights higher and soon shows up in the capitol of Sixaola.

Meanwhile Jack Keveney comes up on the streets himself, though most of the time he’s just posing as a hippie as part of his narcotics job. Hirschfeld employs that sometimes-annoying narrative thread schtick of his here, with the too-belabored subtext of Keveney’s Catholic upbringing. I think practically every time Keveney is featured we’re reminded of something the Sisters or Father Whatsisname told him as a young boy. And, to continue with the cliches, Keveney is conflicted by it all. The shame of it is that this detracts from the “tough cop” stuff you’d expect to read, especially given Keveney’s cred, taking down muggers and druggers and whatnot.

Napoleon grows his power thanks to a sleazy American middleman named Willie Hatch; Keveney, climbing up the ladder himself, falls for a left-wing reporter named Rosie and marries her, having a son with her. The kid I don’t think garners even a single line of text, and Rosie’s soon jettisoned from the novel too, as Keveney is more focused on his career and also a hot black police woman he’s having casual sex with. Eventually he’s offered a job by the Feds to head up a “high-tech, high-impact drug team” called D-Group, which of course reminded me a lot of the outfit D-3 in the Narc series.

And in a way, Kingpin comes off at times like Burt Hirschfeld writing an installment of that earlier Marc Olden series. Only whereas Olden would occasionally spice things up with action sequences, Hirschfeld and Fadiman are more content with the slow-burn. Making it even more of an uphill struggle is that years go by with little indication of when anything is taking place; the novel alternates between documenting Napoleon’s life and Keveney’s life, and sometimes when we reconnect with them again they’ve moved on to other things and we feel like we’ve missed out on something.

Again like his progenitor Dax Xenos, Napoleon hooks up with a leftist guerrilla squad and occasionally uses them as his private army. After pulling a daring heist on a bank owned by the Regents, ie the wealthy men who control all cocaine manufacture in Sixaola, Napoleon augments his personal staff with a few go-to specialists from the guerrillas, among them the breathtakingly beautiful Nina Fuentes. Soon Nina becomes Napoleon’s lover, but since he swings both ways, particularly to girlish young boys, she eventually becomes frustrated with him, seeking sexual relief on her assassination jobs:

You have worn me out,” Bustamente said without complaint. 

“Rest, Eduardo. You have done your best.” 

“The best is still to come, my dear.” He lay spread-eagled on his back, his breathing rapid and harsh, his eyes closed. He longed to sleep. He barely noticed the cold muzzle of the .25-caliber automatic when it was pressed up against his ear. “The best,” he repeated, before his world dissolved in pain and blood and endless blackness. 

Nina felt Bustamente’s body jerk, already dead. She took his cock in her hand and, as she knew it would be, it was pumped up in terminal tumescence. She pressed forward, her long, strong legs wrapped around the still warm corpse, pounding insistently against the curve of his hip, caught up by an excitement such as she had never before known. Spasm after extended spasm left her shaken and drained, still embracing Bustamente. Electric impulses made her flesh twitch and blinding lights went off behind her closed eyes, until she rested contentedly.

Unfortunately, this is the only sequence in the novel that goes this over the top, and Nina’s penchant for murder and necrophilia isn’t mentioned again. Indeed, that time-telescoping really neuters the characters; when next we encounter her, Nina’s become Napoleon’s roving salesperson or something, going about the Americas and posing as a seller of office furniture, but in reality a scout for possible coke-infiltrating locations. This is how Keveney meets her, though initially he knows her as Silvia Gutierrez, her cover name; regardless, Keveney’s D-Group boys have monitored the sexy woman’s voyages to and fro South America and have hard evidence of her drug dealing.

But Keveney’s got an instant hard-on for her and doesn’t just want to arrest her. Instead he poses as a mobbed-up dude in her apartment complex (?), hoping he’ll catch her eye. At length he does, though Nina’s all business; Keveney hires her to stock his “office” with furniture. This eventually leads to a relationship, with the authors getting down and dirty with that oldschool Hirschfeld style, with climaxes compared to cresting waves and peaks and whatnot. But it is a little ramped up for the ‘80s, with Nina pushing Keveney on an on, even into, uh, anal territory. But love arises amid the sodomy, and when Keveney’s group finally gets the lockdown on the lady’s meetup with a cocaine chemist, he sadly orders in the troops.

Thanks though to her smarts, Nina gets away scott free and returns to Sixaola, still not knowing that the man she was falling in love with was really Jack Keveney, top narc man who is committed to bringing her down. Napoleon (who becomes more distant to us readers the more powerful he becomes, to the extent that we’re denied any scenes from his viewpoint for long stretches toward the end) meanwhile has gotten detailed documentation on who Keveney is, and tasks Nina with his assassination. When she discovers it’s the same man she’s been screwing, she’s riled up good and proper. She’s now burning with her own lust – to track down Keveney and murder him for making a fool of her. Sounds like the buildup to a grand climax, doesn’t it?

But man, talk about a wasted finale. Skip this paragraph if you want to avoid spoilers. But our authors, after spinning their wheels and slowly building up a storyline, blow the payoff in a major way. Jack’s in love with Nina, who has just been ordered to kill him. And Napoleon is plotting the death of the other Regents in an army-backed coup; meanwhile, Keveney is making plans to take out Napoleon. It all promises to lead to some major fireworks. Instead, just as soon as Nina has been given her mission from Napoleon, the army attacks Napoleon’s fortress, using weaponry they’ve gained from the CIA. Nina is anticlimactically killed off by a catamite who has been AWOL from the text for the past hundred or so pages, and Napoleon is arrested and sent to the US. After trading a line or two of text with Keveney in America, Napoleon is put in prison, where he’s killed by employees of the catamite. A depressed Keveney goes back to his ex-wife. The end.

So then, practically every thread the authors have spent 300+ pages developing just comes unravelled in the homestretch. Perhaps their theme is that, despite the maneuvering and planning of great men like Napoleon and Keveney, there are always greater forces at play. While this might be true in the real world it comes off as the dumbest shit ever in the world of dramatic fiction. How much better would it have been if we’d gotten the story they denied us – namely, of a vengeance-obsessed Nina hunting down Keveney, who is in love with her? Or of Keveney and Napoleon finally going mano e mano in a real confrontation?

Too much stalling, too much buildup, and too little payoff sums up Kingpin. It has the potential to be a great piece of thriller fiction, but the authors want to do too much, from documenting Napoleon’s Pablo Escobar-style lust for power to shady CIA deals with the Sixaolan ruling elite bringing to mind the Iran-Contra scandal. Even worse, the characters are all unlikable: Keveney is a dick, constantly bossing people around and griping about something, and Napoleon is too obsessed with his own magnificence to be much fun. Only Nina offers any enjoyment, what with her penchant for murder and necrophilia, but she’s only in about a quarter of the text.

In sum, Kingpin was kind of a letdown, but it did achieve the purpose for which I bought it: keeping me entertained during a recent trip to Tampa.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Bonnie


Bonnie, by Hugh Barron
November, 1970  NEL Books
(Original US edition, 1965)

One of the more obscure Burt Hirschfeld novels, Bonnie is also the most fun, and certainly the most sleazy and pulpy. Originally published under the house name “Oscar Bessie,” Bonnie is all about a horny young woman who becomes “the princess of the motorcycle gangs.”

If ever there was a Hirschfeld novel that should’ve been an AIP biker movie, this is the one. Curiously, it was never reprinted under Hirschfeld’s name in the US (more of which below), and it only appeared under his “Hugh Barron” pseudonym in the UK. The “Oscar Bessie” edition was published by Domino Books, a sleaze imprint of Lancer, however be aware the novel isn’t explicit, really, and not just due to the year it was published (1965); Hirschfeld is very much in his metaphorical mode this time out, with climaxes compared to cresting waves and etc.

Bonnie shares almost the exact same template as a later Hirschfeld novel, Cindy On Fire. Like Cindy Ashe, Bonnie Dixon is 19, beautiful, blonde, and bored. Living in Bayville, an area of Long Island, Bonnie like the later Cindy is saddled with a loser of a fiance, super-square Bob Horner. The dude doesn’t even believe in premarital sex! The novel opens with yet another of his refusals, as Bonnie implores Bob to take her one night after a date. Throwing a fit when she’s turned down for the umpteenth time, Bonnie runs away from Bob’s car, whips off her clothes, and runs nude along a deserted stretch of the beach.

After spying on a couple having sex, Bonnie swims nude in the ocean. When she lays back on the sand she’s almost raped by a pair of bikers. She’s only saved by the appearance of their leader, a muscular, good-looking dude who wields a riding crop. This is Mike Shaw, leader of the Apaches “motorcycle club.” The two would-be rapists are Leo and Buster. Mike gives Bonnie a ride home, and she’s so excited she can’t sleep that night and must pleasure herself (again, written in a very metaphorical style).

Bonnie, increasingly distant from her parents and Bob Horner, runs into the Apaches again, and tells them she wants to join. But she doesn’t just want to be a “squaw;” she wants to be a full-fledged member, with her own bike. First though she must pass the “Ordeals” all new Apaches must face. The first ordeal is a mugging in a park, Bonnie distracting a pair of random dudes while a few Apaches swoop in and attach them, and then Bonnie must join in the fight. She enjoys it so much she nearly beats the victims to a pulp.

The next ordeal is a brutal fight with another female Apache, while the rest of the gang watches. It takes place in an old farmhouse the Apaches have taken for themselves, and Bonnie is able to overcome her more-powerful opponent, using her wits and her speed. This leads immediately into the final ordeal, which first has Bonnie bathed by “handmaidens,” and then, nude, put up on an auction block! The Apaches bid for her, and the winner gets Bonnie for the night.

Hirschfeld, realizing he was required to write a sleazy tale, goes all the way – a female Apache bids for Bonnie at an exorbitant cost. This is Paula Hart, gorgeous redhead with a shitkicker bod. Paula takes Bonnie to a separate room and has her put on thigh-high boots and hands her a whip. Yes, friends, Hirschfeld really goes for it, here – Paula gets off on being whipped, and urges Bonnie to lash the hell out of her, after which Paula crawls on her hands and knees to an exhausted Bonnie and starts dining at the Y…friends, I never knew ol’ Burt had it in him!

Three weeks later and Bonnie’s such a diehard Apache she threatens to usurp Mike’s position as leader. She has her own crew now, in particular Paula, Leo, and Buster, and she and Mike are on the verge of open warfare. Not that this stops Bonnie from occasionally screwing Mike. Hirschfeld also intimates that Bonnie’s screwed most of the Apaches, but wisely, for such a short novel (124 pages), he limits the narrative to just a few named characters. Strangely, Bonnie is still engaged to Bob Horner, who not only still refuses to have sex with her, but apparently is oblivious about her secret life as an Apache.

Now our antihero needs her own motorcycle. One thing I should mention is that Bonnie is pretty scant so far as biker stuff goes – I mean, motorcycle models aren’t mentioned, and there’s maybe two or three parts where people even ride their bikes. It’s more about Bonnie’s need for constant thrills, and the increasing levels of sadism and danger she compels her fellow Apaches to. It’s also your typical morality play-type tale, about the dangers of peering too far into the abyss.

Anyway, Mike Shaw pokes fun at Bonnie that she could just ask her loaded parents for the money to buy a bike. But Bonnie’s plan wins yet more favor from the Apaches – she’s going to rob her own parents. Once again employing Paula, Leo, and Buster, Bonnie and her three followers dress “completely in black leather, including full-face wind masks and leather helmets” and head for Bonnie’s home. There they break in, threaten Bonnie’s parents with knives, tie them up, and raid the safe.

But before Bonnie can even buy a bike, she goes back to the farmhouse, where new Apaches are being inducted…and bids on the new girl for herself! This is buxom, vixenish Leah, who is game for a little lesbian fun with Bonnie, though again it doesn’t drop into outright sleaze. I mean, to be sure, there’s lots of dirty stuff going on, but it’s written so “poetically” that it never descends into porn. Bonnie has outbid Mike for Leah, which furthers the potential Apache rift, something compounded when Bonnie gets her own chopper and starts leading around her own little crew.

The Apaches are at war with the Monarchs, a gang from a few towns over that greatly outnumbers the Apaches. Mike has never been able to defeat them. Bonnie knows that if she comes up with a strategy to destroy them, she’ll immediately become the leader of the Apaches. Her plan is as usual mean-spirited and crazy; she breaks into a beach house, hides weapons in it, and invites the Monarchs over for a big party.

Having the “squaws” and other female members “be nice” to the Monarchs (including the memorable image of Leah standing over three satiated and unconscious Monarchs), Bonnie gets the other gang nice and drunk while she and the Apaches stay sober. Then, after Bonnie’s had (unfulfilling) sex with the Monarch “war chief,” she blows a whistle and the battle begins. The Apaches beat the shit out of the Monarchs, trashing the beach house in the process.

A recurring element – same as in Cindy On Fire -- is that Bonnie cannot achieve satisfaction in anything, especially sex. Constantly spurred to greater lengths, she ends up screwing Mike Shaw yet again, and then racing with him on the night roads at top speed. When a cop gives chase, Mike attempts to lead him to his death, but Bonnie panics and crashes herself, saving the cop’s life. She’s sprung from jail, and it’s even worse because her parents and Bob Horner are even more understanding and etc.

But it’s worse with the Apaches – Bonnie goes to the farmhouse to discover that she’s now persona non grata, thanks to her saving a cop’s life. She has to murder someone to make amends with the gang, or they’ll kill her. When Bonnie refuses to kill a bum that night at a park, she runs from Mike and Paula, almost killing the former with the wrench she was supposed to use on the bum. Bonnie, just like Cindy Ashe, ends up running to the man she’s treated like shit since page one – her fiance, Bob Horner.

Humorously enough, Hirschfeld only bothers to inform us here in the eleventh hour that Bob was formerly a collegiate wrestler, and is still a big and muscular guy! (The image previously presented to us clearly made him out to be a 90-pound weakling.) The couple goes to the beach, where Bonnie unloads her story to a noncommittal Bob. Then, right on cue, Mike, Paula, Leo, and Buster show up, staging an ambush right where this whole story began.

Would you be surprised that Bob Horner makes short work of the three men? Better yet is Bonnie’s fight with Paula, who comes at her with a knife. This is a pretty vicious catfight, which ends with Bonnie finishing Paula off with “a perfect karate chop” to the throat. Then Bob, suddenly the man, hops on one of the choppers, tells Bonnie to get behind him, and blasts off! Then he insists they swim nude…and have sex right there on the beach!

And of course, just like Cindy Ashe who too was reunited at long last with the man she’d treated like shit, only to find he was the perfect match for her, Bonnie Dixon finally knows true satisfaction and happiness with Bob Horner. As mentioned, it’s a morality play, or whatever you all it, only one filled with leather-clad biker chicks and lesbian sex and occasional mentions of “pot parties.” In other words, it’s pretty great.

Maybe the one thing holding Bonnie back from true greatness is, again, Hirschfeld’s ornate style, which admittedly isn’t as busy here as it is in some of his other books. And also you have to admire how much he packs into so few pages. Given that Bonnie was never reprinted under his own name, you have to wonder if Hirschfeld maybe disowned it, but I think there might be another story there.

Bonnie was first published by Domino, as mentioned a Lancer imprint; this NEL reprint is copyright Lancer Books. When Hirschfeld reprinted his “Hugh Barron” books in the ‘80s, Bonnie was not included – but then, all of the other Hugh Barron novels had originally been printed by Pyramid Books. Lancer had been out of business since September 1973. So what I’m trying to say is, maybe Bonnie was never reprinted in the ‘80s because Hirschfeld couldn’t secure the rights to it.

Who knows. At any rate Bonnie is pretty fun. Here’s the cover of that original Domino/Lancer edition, from 1965, which not only gets it wrong by making Bonnie a brunette, but also by making her look like a drag queen:

Monday, April 16, 2012

Father Pig


Father Pig, by Burt Hirschfeld
May, 1973 Dell Books

This novel is very unlike any other I've yet read by Burt Hirschfeld. Here he tackles the generation gap, turning it into an actual war, with hippie kids plotting the deaths of their parents. I also get the feeling that Hirschfeld had a tough time writing Father Pig, as the novel seems to lack a certain something...for one, it's very short, and something about it just feels too rushed. Also, Hirschfeld states on the acknowledgement page: "Only the continuous encouragement, the editorial help, the faith of my wife, Terry, made it possible for me to write this book."

Hirschfeld makes little mystery of which side of the gap he's on. The hippies in this novel are murdering scum, and the saddest thing is Hirschfeld never bothers to explain to us what makes them tick, why exactly they want to kill their parents. It's only learned, late in the book, that they're part of a Weathermen cell, but beyond that...how did they come up with this exact plan? It's inferred -- by the parents themselves -- that the kids are just killing their parents as an obvious statement of their hatred of the older generation, but still, something just doesn't gibe. Reading this novel, you get the feeling that every longhaired kid is a parent-hating psycho, just biding their time until they can hack mom and dad to death with a machete.

The heroes of the tale are Charles Livingston and Floyd Breed. Livingston is a typical Hirschfeld protagonist, a successful middle-ager who has come into a vast fortune as a talent agent. He lives in a posh NYC penthouse suite and is currently busy mollifying his Jerry Lewis-esque client, who's throwing tantrums in Vegas. Breed is a different sort of Hirschfeld protagonist, a salt of the earth type who lives in a hamlet in North Carolina and provides his services as a hunting and fishing guide. Throughout the first half of the novel, Hirschfeld plays on the similarities and differences of the two men: both are WWII vets, both are parents of college-age kids, but both went on to vastly different lives.

Again, Hirschfeld makes his bias easily known, as the Gary Cooper-esque Breed comes off as the stronger of the two, with Livingston constantly comparing himself to the man, and finding himself weaker. What brings them together is when Breed is attacked in his house by a knife-wielding hippie. Breed fights off the kid and then, instead of calling the cops, travels up to New York City, because he's sure the hippie who attacked him was a friend of Breed's daughter, Eva.

Breed hasn't heard from Eva in a year or so, and the two aren't the closest. Breed raised the girl alone after his wife was killed in a car wreck, and he and his daughter have little in common. So he goes up to New York, finds out that Eva hasn't attended college in months, and also discovers that the girl has disappeared. Breed then tracks down Eva's associates, and finds out that she was dating a boy named Kenneth Livingston, another long-haired student who has also dropped out of college.

Kenneth is of course Livingston's son, and Livingston too hasn't been in touch with his kid for a long time. But Livingston could care less; he raised his son to be independent, and figures he can take care of himself. He is also certain that Kenneth and Eva are just off having a good time, and thinks Breed is a fool for suspecting them of being involved with murderers -- in a subplot, we see yet another hippie kill a redneck-type couple, but this time the killer is caught, and sure enough Breed recognizes another of Eva's friends.

The first half of Father Pig appropriates the feel of The Searchers, with Breed and Livingston going about NYC in search of their kids, looking into stores and coffee shops and etc. Psychedelic-era New York City comes to life here, but Hirschfeld moreso uses the scene to further play on the gaping differences between Breed and Livingston. Throughout, Livingston still believes Breed is nuts and won't harbor the idea that his own son is plotting his murder.

Anyway, Breed is right -- the kids are plotting their deaths. We only get minimal insight into the workings of Eva and Kenneth; Eva seems to be the mastermind, working as a sort of operations command center. The various hippies call in to report to her on their status, and Eva pushes them on, insisting that they see the job through. There are a few other hippie-terrorists besides, including the son of a prominent author who begins to have second thoughts about murdering his folks.

As Breed and Livingston search on, more murders occur, and in each case the killers scrawl "Father Pig" in red ink on the walls, in true Manson Family fashion. Breed and Livingston part ways after failing to find their kids, but not before Hirschfeld gets to throw in a mod-psychedelic party that the two attend, Livingston of course picking up a hippie chick. After which Hirschfeld focuses on Livingston, who becomes the main protagonist, traveling around for work, picking up various starlets-to-be, wondering if Breed is correct in that his son is a murderer.

The last quarter of the novel again shows a different side of Hirschfeld; after various murders and surprises, Livingston finally realizes that his son is trying to kill him, and so lures the boy up to his cabin in the New York woods. Here Hirschfeld plays out a suspenseful scene of father and son trying to kill one another in the dense forest, laying traps, shooting at each other, even fighting hand to hand.

Father Pig isn't the best Hirschfeld I've read, but it isn't a bad novel by any means. It just isn't as sleazy as it wants to be, nor as horrific. I really wanted more insight into the workings of the Weathermen cell, more action from the hippie-terrorist point of view. On the plus side, Hirschfeld does reign in his writing here, delivering a taut narrative with no fat. He does still dole out the occasional goofy bit where he, as is his custom, tries to plumb the psychological depths of his characters, like here when Livingston sits in his Vegas suite and wonders over the chaos he has made of his life:

No clear image remained when Livingston woke. The girl was gone and only the female scent of her lingered. After a hot tub, Livingston sat naked in a deep chair near the sliding glass doors that opened onto the generous patio.

Desert heat washed over his chest and legs; and on his back and shoulders the cool bite of conditioned air. He felt divided between two opposing worlds, responsive to each but in control of neither.

"In control of neither?" All he has to do is shut the door or turn off the A/C! Hirschfeld also works in his customary sex scenes, though the majority of the women in question are young bimbos, either brain-fried hippie girls or actresses desperate to become famous. But then I figure this is another of Hirschfeld's gambits, showing the dichotomy between the generations.

So, a different side of Burt Hirschfeld. Not a better side by any means, just different. Finally, it seems that Father Pig is one of the more obscure books in the Hirschfeld catalog; I've never seen a copy in a used bookstore and had to get mine online.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Love Thing


The Love Thing, by Hugh Barron
June, 1970 Pyramid Books

I can't believe I let summer pass me by without reading a Burt Hirschfeld novel; the guy's books are perfect summer reading. I realized this around mid-October and so proceeded to read The Love Thing, one of Hirschfeld's last novels to be published under his "Hugh Barron" psuedonym. Given that it was still 90 degrees here in Dallas, my "home" of the past several years, it was like summer hadn't ended anyway. (But then, "summer" really isn't an appropriate term for the season here; "hell on earth" would be more fitting.)

Once again the cover compares Hirschfeld's novel to Jacqueline Susann, and The Love Thing does focus on the Hollywood life, only it's not as trashy or campy as you'd wish. In fact the novel was kind of boring; once again Hirschfeld has stuffed too many characters into a novel too thin on plot or action. "The Love Thing" is Maggie Love, a 40 year-old screen superstar who has gone to seed, drinking heavily and gaining weight, her star fading fast. (In other words, Elizabeth Taylor circa 1970.) She's just starred in a big studio picture titled The Big Ones, and the gist of the novel is the studio's attempts to publicize the new film.

Maggie really isn't the protagonist here; again, there are many characters, but the foremost two are Roger Hare, a wily PR man who will do anything to get into a position of power, and Tony Parker, one of Roger's PR men, but a guy with a bit more class and heart. A big portion of The Love Thing is devoted to Tony's failing marriage with his wife Serena (feel free to make up your own Bewitched joke). In fact, too damn much of the novel is given over to this middling storyline.

Events are spread over several weeks as various characters attend meetings and go to the occasional party; here Hirschfeld shines, with his usual dopesmoking groovy psychedelic-era sequences of hotpants-wearing girls swinging it to pounding mod freakbeat while older guys watch the action from behind beaded curtains, smoking Chesterfields and wondering how they can get in on the action. But unfortunately such scenes are few and far between. The novel misses that flair for trash Hirschfeld displays in his other novels, and comes off as the fulfilment of a contract with Pyramid Books.

Like many Hollywood novels of the era, The Love Thing is concerned with the "death" of the Hollywood studio system and the emergence of the "New Hollywood" (which didn't last nearly as long); many characters spend pages discussing cinema verite and the work of artsy French directors.

And "The Love Thing" herself is lost in the shuffle; Maggie Love is of course the most interesting thing here, a fallen star given to drink and excess, preparing for her death trip. There could've been a great novel here about the lady, in fact a novel that would've justified the Jacqueline Susann comparisons, but instead we have tiresome sequences of various characters discussing PR events and Tony Parker wondering how he can win back his wife.

The best thing about The Love Thing is the cover for the New English Library edition, which was published in 1971. This was actually the cover that got me obsessed with finding all of the Hugh Barron novels a few years ago:


And you've gotta love the mirror image on the back cover:


Like the majority of the Hugh Barron novels, The Love Thing was reprinted by Dell Books in 1984 under Hirschfeld's own name. The cover for this edition is pretty cool, too:

Monday, April 4, 2011

Burt Hirschfeld: A Face For The Name

I've wondered for years what Burt Hirschfeld looked like. Thanks to the hardcover editions of his 1978 novel Key West and his 1984 novel Flawless, I finally know. Each book features a photo of the man himself, and he looks nothing like I thought he would.

Here's Hirschfeld on the back cover of Key West:


And here he is from Flawless:


I have to guess that Hirschfeld probably shrugged off those mortal coils a long time ago. As I theorized in an earlier post, it was probably sometime in the early 1990s, as that's when his steady stream of novels came to an abrupt stop.

But as I also stated earlier -- he left behind a huge body of work, one that's ripe for rediscovery.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Tilt! (aka The Corruptor)


Tilt!, by Hugh Barron
October, 1967 Pyramid Books
(Published in the UK as The Corruptor, 1969)

This was the second novel Burt Hirschfeld published under his Hugh Barron psuedonym, and though the Pyramid cover references Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls and Harold Robbins's The Adventurers, Tilt! is its own thing, unlike either of those two novels. It's about a sleazy PR guy named Deke Dixon who is certain his latest find, a huckster named "Preacher" Pope (really) is guaranteed to become the next governor of California. Tilt! exploits the then-current psychedelic scene, but gradually becomes mired in unrelated subplots and endless rhetoric courtesy Preacher Pope and the other politicians he and Deke become associated with, which gradually makes reading the novel a bit of a slog.

It starts off pretty good, though: thanks to Deke's manuevering Preacher has become a regular fixture at a psychedelic-themed strip club on Hollywood's Sunset Strip, where he preaches love and sex to the Day Glo-painted masses. Orgies generally follow his preachings, and business is good. Yet Deke wants more. He figures Preacher's "free love" preaching will so overcome the youth population that Preacher could easily become the governor of California.

Unsurprisingly, the duo find this is easier said than done. After being turned down by one heavyweight in the political field, they become involved with a far-right nutjob who too sees the potential in Preacher. In true pulp fashion this guy lives in a sort of Medieval castle in the middle of the woods, where he controls an army and plots the conservative Republican takeover of California...and from there, the entire country!

This section of the novel is so prescient as to be both hilarious and sad. The far-right nutjob, Hiram Woodward, runs the Breed's Hill Congress, which caters to the fears and prejudices of the average conservative Christian Republican. It's as if the novel suddenly takes place in 2005 (or any other year during the Dubya Bush reign) and not 1967. Preacher is refashioned into a champion of Old Virtues and Morality, demagoguing his way through the conservative trenches of California, speaking to the fear and paranoia of the "true American." This entails way too many political/religious speeches on Preacher's part, but again, it's funny in that it provides further proof how little things change.

But then, as if realizing he doesn't have enough story to fill an entire novel, Hirschfeld flashes back for a long section which details how Deke became involved with Preacher. We see Deke's conman beginnings in New York City, how due to an affair with his boss's wife he had to leave the city and decided upon LA as his new base of operations. Next comes an endless and bizarre sequence, unrelated to the rest of the novel, in which Deke attempts to make a busty young dancer into a superstar. He arranges one crackpot scheme after another, each of them failures: the strangest is when he hires two bikers to "pretend" to rape the girl, so she can stagger to the nearest news outlet and relay her story. Meanwhile the bikers rape her for real and, instead of even telling the story, the poor girl calls Deke and goes home to recuperate. There's another goofy sequence where she parachutes, wearing nothing but a bikini, into the pool of a famous producer's house while a party of Hollywood notables is in progress.

After all of this Deke finally meets Preacher, and we get little understanding why he so latches onto the guy as a surefire means to success. Preacher's just a hollow-eyed huckster, a man who truly believes in Christianity and yet enjoys sleeping with young girls, the younger the better. Deke, through one of his crackpot schemes with the wanna-be starlet, has inadvertently started a sensation at the local college. There, influenced by Deke's style, two guys have started a sex club. They invite Deke to the next orgy and, after one poor new girl is "initiated" via rape, they all head out to the beach, where Preacher appears like some prophet. Deke watches him work, somehow making the kids listen to his fire and brimstone spiel, and the big idea hits him.

The novel gets even stranger. Deke's big idea is to have Preacher headline at a strip club where, as nude girls gyrate about him, he exhorts the club-goers on the justness of free love and casual sex. And people line up around the block to pay to hear him! This of course generates a bit of publicity, which makes it all the more unbelieveable that Preacher can later be remodeled as a proclaimer of morality and purity. Any muckracking reporter could easily dig up the guy's sordid past, but Deke and new boss Hiram Woodward overcome this by having Preacher get married...to Deke's ex-wife, a failed actress and all-around-drunk named Margot.

I guess my issue with Tilt! is that it's just all so hard to buy. The psychedelic club stuff is pretty good, with lots of go-go dancers and flashing lights, but it doesn't gel with the old traditions rhetoric Preacher must later spout. Also, Preacher himself doesn't even want to become the next governor of California, so again Deke's single-minded determination rings hollow. And there's too much going on, none of it satisfactorily tied together, including the subplot of Deke trying to woo a major superstar named Margot Sain -- the suspense is ruined because a third of the way through the novel we see, via a long flashback, Deke's vain attempts to win the girl over; meanwhile, we already know from the first half of the novel that the two are a couple.

Normally I enjoy Hirschfeld's writing but I found parts of Tilt! a bit wearying. His style here is more affected than usual, and I'm certain this is due to his trying to fill a page quota. This too would explain all of the random and unrelated backstory for Deke. Also the page-long diatribes of Preacher and the other conservative politicians. But despite it all I still enjoy the guy's writing. It's a toss-up; I love the Hugh Barron novels because they're so pulpy and exploitative, but the novels Hirschfeld published under his own name are just better written.

NEL published Tilt! under the better title The Corruptor in 1969. Here's the cover:

And here's the cover for the rarely-seen Dell reprint from 1985:

Friday, February 25, 2011

The Goddess Game


The Goddess Game, by Hugh Barron
November, 1969 Pyramid Books

Between 1967 and 1971 Burt Hirschfeld published a handful of novels under the psuedonym Hugh Barron (with a final novel, Special People, published in the UK only in 1978). Each of the Hugh Barron books were "in the tradition of"-type novels, the "tradition" in question usually being "Harold Robbins."

Hirschfeld's 1969 novel The Goddess Game however is "in the tradition of" Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls -- so much so that Pyramid Books even references Susann's novel on the cover. (Incidentally, the cover of the Pyramid edition of The Goddess Game, shown here, is by far my favorite of all the Burt Hirschfeld/Hugh Barron novels: taken by photographer Lester Krauss, the shots are almost like stills from an imaginary film based on the novel, one redolent with the groovy, swingadelic vibe of the time -- and The Goddess Game would've made for one helluva groovy, swingadelic movie.)

The novel opens in 1969 or thereabouts; Mandy Brooke, rabble-rousing movie star and all-around queen bitch, goes missing on the night of the Oscars. Mandy is beloved by the heartland of America; she is so known for heartwarming roles that the public thinks of Mandy herself as a golden-hearted samaritan. In reality however Mandy's into all sorts of sordid shenanigans, and this is just her latest escapade: despite the round-the-clock watch the studio placed on her on this most important of days (Mandy's up for an Oscar), she still manages to escape and disappear. Tod Little, head of the studio's PR department, is tasked by studio chief HH to track Mandy down. Tod's only clue is a tidbit the watcher overheard as Mandy was on the phone, shortly before she disappeared: something about "after all these years, it sounds like fun!"

From there the novel takes up a sort of trash fiction Citizen Kane approach. Working under the assumption that Mandy is going to meet up with some old friends, Tod tracks down three of Mandy's former acquaintances: Ursula Lawrence, Holly Parker, and Trish Sanders. The majority of the narrative, then, is given over to flashbacks for each of them, occuring the decade before, when the four girls all shared a room in New York City and together sought fame in the acting world.

It's this flashback nature which hampers The Goddess Game. In short, the storylines for each of the four women are mostly the same. The material in 1969 however is true trash gold and makes one wish for more of it. For as the narrative progresses we learn that Mandy hasn't just escaped; she's been kidnapped, and the kidnappers already have a stash worth of photos of Mandy taking part in "unwholesome activities" with a bunch of men and women.

Only Mandy's flashback sequence comes close to equalling the 1969 portion: Mandy is a true trash fiction bitch, the "Neely O'Hara" of the novel. (The entire novel comes off like a "spot the Valley of the Dolls analogue" guessing game.) Like Neely, Mandy Brooke is a pill-popping man-eater, a malicious monster who schemes and manipulates and backstabs. Her flashback is the juiciest, as she sets up "friend" Holly so as to steal her part in a Broadway play: Mandy pays some bikers to rape the poor girl, and then, while it's happening, places an anonymous call to both the cops and the gossip rags that a "wild sex orgy" is taking place with a Broadway actress in attendance. From there Mandy becomes only more deliciously conniving: she makes a famous, elderly director fall so in love with her that he divorces his wife of decades; then she sleeps with a variety of men so as to become pregnant and fool the director into believing that it's his child, so he will marry her; then she gets an abortion while he's away. Finally she literally screws the poor bastard to death; now that she has the standing of his name, she doesn't need the man himself.

The flashbacks for the other three girls just can't compare to this. And to make it worse, there isn't much difference between Mandy Brooke and Ursula Lawrence. Like Mandy, Ursula is a scheming, backstabbing beauty, one who will do anything for fame. She isn't as cruel as Mandy, so therefore Ursula's backstory isn't as fun. Instead, it's rather boring: Ursula cons a gay theater director into making her a Broadway star.

Trish Sanders is the good girl of the lot, the "Anne Welles" of the novel. A smalltown girl who has come to the big city to hone her craft, Trish is the only one of the four who has any acting talent. She doesn't seek to become a "star" like the rest of them. So again, her flashback can't compare to Mandy's, but makes for a fine character study -- Trish is very much in the mold of the female characters in later Hirschfeld novels. Her particular fate is marrying a closeted gay actor, finding him in bed with another man, and then breaking down. Her fate is more rosy than the others: like Mandy, Trish also finds lasting fame in the acting business, becoming a well-respected actress. She's up for an Oscar in the 1969 portion as well, but like the other girls Tod Little speaks to, hasn't seen Mandy in the past ten years.

Finally there's Holly Parker, the blonde with the brick shithouse-bod and the intelligence of a pea. Her flashback comes last and it's a smart gambit from Hirschfeld; we read about Holly's "wild sex orgy" setup early in the novel but must wait until near the end to discover how it went down and its aftermath. She is of course The Goddess Game version of Jennifer North, a gorgeous gal with a big heart who, despite her good nature, runs afoul of supremely bad luck. After being torn apart in the newspapers due to her alleged orgy antics, Holly escapes back home to the simple life of a farm. Wanting to become smarter, she reads voraciously and eventually decides to go to college. (Only in the world of trash fiction can gang rape lead to heightened intelligence.) Holly falls in love with one of her teachers, a man twenty years older than she, and marries; she of all the girls is given the "happily ever after," content with her small world and family life.

The 1969 framing story culminates with Mandy freed from her kidnappers, who turn out to have been the same three bikers she hired a decade ago to rape Holly. But Mandy was a willing attendee of the orgy; she gloats to HH and Tod Little that "two other girls" were there and "there was nothing we didn't do, nothing." Sadly, Hirschfeld skips the promised action scene here; we're only told that Mike Toland (HH's security chief) and his men beat up the bikers, we don't see it happen. From there Mandy is taken, still nude and spaced-out on various drugs, to a doctor who injects her with Vitamin B, and then she's dressed and sent to the Oscars, where it's expected she will win Best Actress.

Hirschfeld's writing is mostly good, but I get the feeling The Goddess Game was churned out quickly. One can see why he eventually gave up the psuedonym game and started publishing better-crafted stories under his own name. In an amusing bit of page-filling Hirschfeld repeats snatches of text whole-hog throughout the novel; a few scenes recur during the four flashbacks, and Hirschfeld just re-uses text he's already written. He also POV-hops a lot in this novel, which always causes me to die just a little.

Here's the cover for the NEL edition, from 1969:


And a bonus cover -- in 1985 Dell Books reprinted the Hugh Barron novels under Hirschfeld's own name. I have to say, though: none of these cover models really fit my description of a "goddess!"