Prurient Interest: A Pornographer's Progress

by Roland Graeme

Unusually for Roland Graeme, this book doesn't contain any sex. Well, hardly any! In this nonfictional, autobiographical work, the author reminisces about his lengthy career as a writer of erotic fiction. It's a classic "small town boy makes good" story, but with a twist. This small town boy remained a bad boy for a very long time, not only in his personal life, but in the steady stream of fiction he produced. Starting out in the days of the manual typewriter, carbon paper copies, and manuscripts actually mailed to publishers via the Postal Service, he continued to be, in his own words, "an appallingly prolific pornographer" right through today's digital information era. And the "dirty young man who became a dirty old man" shows no signs of slowing down, or reducing the quantity or the prurience of his output.

178 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 4, 2020

About the author

Roland Graeme is one of several pseudonyms used by a prolific writer of erotic fiction. Graeme, a descendant of Swiss immigrants and a native of Pennsylvania, resides in Buffalo, New York. He earned a Ph.D. in English by writing his doctoral dissertation on the novels of Sir Walter Scott (“Roland Graeme” is the protagonist of Scott’s novel The Abbot). His interests, in addition to literature, include classical music (especially opera), history, and world religions, as well as, not surprisingly, human sexuality, in all its variety and richness.

Graeme has been, at one time or another, a teacher, a factory worker, a civil servant, and a music critic. The one common denominator throughout his career(s) has been his passion for freelance writing. He continues to hold down his current full-time “day job” while writing in his spare time.

Reviews

[Justin Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historically significant and wildly entertaining memoir by an author of gay fiction during the pulp era. I will be citing this book for years to come, no doubt, thanks to Graeme's meticulous record keeping. We learn what straight and women editors were fussy about and what they thought gay men wanted to read, plus much more. I highlighted nearly every sentence.