Here, in the third installment of my exploration of the farther reaches of cult fiction, I’ll be turning my gaze to the most widely derided format of them all: smut, or XXX, books.
To be sure, there’s ample justification for this derision. Unlike horror fiction and movie novelizations, which even at their tawdriest can provide a great deal of disreputable fun, most smut books were churned out by writers who admittedly had better things to do. There are a (very) few standout examples of XXX fiction to be found, as evidenced by STORY OF THE EYE, LOLITA and STORY OF O, but they’re not the norm by any means.
With smut novels the traditional standards of cult fiction don’t really apply. Most of these books are so obscure they haven’t been able to attain any kind of cult status–a category, I’d argue, that MADAM SEX THIEF by Robert Moore, THE POWER AND THE PAIN by Charles Platt and THE MARTYR by David Meltzer would attain if only they weren’t so damned hard to find. For this reason, I’ve incorporated smut fiction from the early 1960s, when such books tended to be quite mild, with the far more explicit examples that followed.
Worthwhile XXX novels that didn’t make the cut include EVIL COMPANIONS by Michael Perkins, THONGS by Alexander Trocchi and TIDES OF LUST by Samuel Delaney, as despite the followings they all enjoy those books are simply too easy to find. That, obviously, is not that case with the following titles.
THE ACID EATERS by Rolf Kirby
An example of a format that was extremely popular in late 1960s smut publishing: a photo illustrated novel. This book, hailing from the Olympic Foto-Reader outfit, purports to novelize the 1967 trash flick THE ACID EATERS, with stills from the film to help the reader along. That film, for the record, is quite easy to acquire, but the book isn’t.
THE GEEK by Alice Ramirez
From the late upscale smut publisher Essex House, a much nuttier-than-average XXX novel about a debauched travelling carnival as seen through the eyes of a chicken. The original 1969 paperback edition is currently impossible to find, but copies of the 1995 Masquerade Books reprinting (credited to “Tiny Alice”) are still extant. How much longer will that be the case? I’d say not very.
HUNG by Leonard Chris
This is widely claimed to be one of thirty or so smut novels authored by Dean Koontz in the 1970s. The man himself, alas, won’t confirm authorship of any of any of those books (claiming he was misquoted in interviews he gave back in the day in which his smut career was discussed), so there’s no way to conclusively establish that Koontz was indeed the author. This of course hasn’t stopped greedy book dealers from charging outrageous fees for this and other supposed Koontz titles like THIRTEEN AND READY!, SWAPPERS’ CONVENTION and SHARING.
JEANNE’S JOURNAL by Mario Mercier
This may well be the wildest book I’ve ever read, an altogether crazed account that falls somewhere between Lautreamont’s MALDOROR, STORY OF O and Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL. It’s quite obscure, but has accrued a small cult following that in my view should be a lot bigger.
If you’re fluent in French the book’s original edition is fairly easy to come by, although the English translation is rather scarce. For the record, JEANNE’S JOURNAL’S premiere English version was via a UK hardcover published by Henrich Hanau, followed by a mass market paperback courtesy of Carlyle Specials, and an eBook version from the late Olympiapress.com. All three are long out of print, although inexpensive copies of the Hanau edition can occasionally be found online.
THE MAKING OF SENSATIONS by Tuppy Owens
This isn’t exactly a “novel,” it being an account of the making of the 1975 sexploitation epic SENSATIONS, but much of it is clearly fictional. Written by the British sexologist Tuppy Owens, THE MAKING OF SEANSATIONS was supposed to serve as a promotional tool for the film but didn’t end up seeing print until 1995.
I found the book enjoyable and enlightening, although I understand it’s become quite scarce in the succeeding decades.
MISS BRUTAL by Sol Tabor
“Sol Tabor” is actually the legendary true crime scribe John Gilmore, and MISS BRUTAL (a.k.a. BRUTAL BABY) one of the first and (I’m told) best of the many smut novels he penned in the 1960s. Its allure is bolstered by the fact that no less a luminary than Ed Wood reputedly wanted to adapt it for the screen. I wish I could glean precisely what all the shouting is about, but have yet to find an affordable, or even semi-affordable, copy.
ORGY OF THE DEAD by Ed Wood, Jr.
All of the 70 or so stag books penned by Ed Wood Jr. in the 1960s and 70s are collector’s items, but ORGY OF THE DEAD appears to be the Wood title everyone most wants. It’s a sort-of novelization of the 1965 Wood-scripted flick of the same name, which offered an altogether ridiculous, plot-free mixture of bad burlesque routines and even worse dialogue. The book isn’t much better, being a hodgepodge of short stories and other Woodian ephrema whose connections with the flick are tenuous at best.
The book (calling it a “novel” would be inaccurate) was initially published as a paperback original by Greenleaf Classics, which is, needless to say, now an ungodly expensive collector’s item. So is the only authorized reprint, a limited-edition Centipede Press hardcover that appeared in 2015 and went out of print almost immediately.
OUTERSPACE SEX ORGY by Arthur Faber
A popular book, if perhaps only for its cover, which I’ve seen posted on countless social media accounts. Speaking as one of the very few who’ve actually read the inside text, I can report that it’s enjoyable enough, detailing exactly what the title promises, and enhanced with photographic illustrations taken from a never-released short film called BLAST OFF.
FYI, this book has been claimed by some as a pseudonymous Ed Wood title. It’s not.
THE ROBOT LOVERS by Dean Hudson
Another case of a respected novelist, in this case Evan Hunter, turning to smut to pay the bills. Hinter ground out quite a few 1960s smut novels under the “Dean Hudson” byline, of which THE ROBOT LOVERS, published by Nightstand Books in 1966, looks to be among the interesting. Not that I’d know.
TAKE DEATH FOR A LOVER by Alan Marshall
“Alan Marshall” was one of several pseudonyms taken by the late Donald E. Westlake on quite a few 1960s era smut novels. This one, featuring a Frankenstein lookalike on the cover and a title that portends necrophilia, would appear to be a standout, and book dealers, who’ve made it an extremely pricey acquisition, seem to agree.
WHACKING OFF by David Meltzer
I get asked about this book a lot. A savage and outrageous satire of American suburbia in the 1960s, WHACKING OFF is one of the best of the half dozen or so novels written by David Meltzer for the late Essex House in 1968-69, and also, it seems, the hardest to find. It was among the last books put out by Essex, by which point its print runs had been substantially decreased from what they initially were, meaning few copies were manufactured and even fewer remain.
The good news here is that there does exist a market for XXX fiction, even if that market is confined largely to the eBook sphere. It’s there that heretofore difficult-to-get-ahold-of XXX rarities like NAKED IN HER COFFIN by Alice Ramirez, THE ADULT VERSION OF DRACULA by (allegedly) Ed Wood and THE GAS by Charles Platt have been made available (mostly by www.triplexbooks.com). Hopefully the eleven books profiled above will follow.