Sin-a-Rama: Expanded Edition: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties

by Adam Parfrey (Editor), B. Astrid Daley (Editor)

"In this entertaining and still-stimulating collection, the ways in which the various authors dealt with their work emerge with radical variety, just as different individuals treat their more basic instincts." —David Cotner, LA Weekly Contributions by Stephen J. Gertz, Jay A. Gertzman, John Gilmore, Michael Hemmingson, Lydia Lunch, Lynn Munroe, and Robert Silverberg. Sin-A-Rama celebrates the near-forgotten world of erotic paperbacks from the 1960s when sex acts were described with code words, writers used pseudonyms, and publishers hid behind mail drop addresses. Sleaze paperbacks sold by the million, and their unorthodox content provoked FBI investigations, court battles, and prison sentences for the crime of "obscenity." Earl Kemp, the notorious Greenleaf Books editor, provides an insider's perspective. In "My Life as a Pornographer," science fiction legend Robert Silverberg divulges how he and other authors learned their sleaze craft. The bizarre glories of cover artists Robert Bonfils, Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton, Bill Ward and others are seen throughout in lurid color. A useful appendix reveals the actual names behind the pseudonyms, revealing both the established and fly-by-night sleaze paperback operators. The new expanded edition includes B. Astrid Daley's profiles on "Occult Sleaze," "Swinging Sleaze," and the tawdry taboo stuff that sleaze literature fell into during the 1970s.

Genres: Pulp, Art

328 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2016

About the author

Adam Parfrey was an American journalist, editor, and the publisher of Feral House books, whose work in all three capacities frequently centered on unusual, extreme, or "forbidden" areas of knowledge. A 2010 Seattle Weekly profile stated that "what Parfrey does is publish books that explore the marginal aspects of culture. And in many cases—at least back when his interests were almost exclusively transgressive—he sheds light on subjects that society prefers to leave unexplored, carving a niche catering to those of us with an unseemly obsession with life's darkest, most depraved sides."

Reviews

[Carlex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four and a half stars

[I.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is mostly a cover collection with very little actual writing beyond a perfunctory overview of the genre and a couple of interviews but man oh man are there some great covers ! Worth checking out for the art alone.

[Doug Brunell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another winner from Feral House.

If you love vintage sleaze books, you need to read this. While it does focus primarily on the cover art (which, along with the titles, is what caused people to buy them in the first place), it also has quite a bit about their history, the authors behind them (like Harlan Ellison), the publishers and the artists. It's a fascinating journey to a time that no longer exists.

The often quaint sleaze of the '50s and '60s gave birth to the porn novel of the '70s on. Now that has disappeared, too, and has become eBooks and the occasional paperback with the tasteful cover. It seems like publishers no longer like to pander to people's baser instincts ... or they are afraid to. With Sin-a-Rama you can go back and see what happens when publishers didn't harbor such fears and actually tried to push boundaries ... unlike the cowards of today.