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Campus Tramp
From the author's
. . .Now my agent informed me that a new publisher, one Bill Hamling, was starting a company to be called Nightstand Books, and that I’d been chosen to write for them. Midwood had been paying me $600 a book, and Hamling would pay $750.
I decided a college novel might be just the ticket. I’d been trying to figure out what to try for Fawcett/Crest–––they, after all, had paid me $2000 for that lesbian novel. But on some level I didn’t really believe I was good enough to write for that good a house, and that kept me from trying. I’d been thinking my second book for Crest might be set on a campus, and when Nightstand came along I took that idea and aimed it at them.
And wrote Campus Tramp in a couple of weeks.
The only college with which I was familiar was Antioch, so it was an easy decision to set the book there–––or at its fictional equivalent, which I called Clifton. And, to amuse myself and any other Antiochian who might read the thing, I gave every character in the book the name of an actual Antioch dormitory as a surname. Since most of the dorms were named after people, guaranteeing them the immortality of, say, Louis J. Bennett, it wasn’t a stretch to fasten their names to human beings, albeit fictional ones.
And, while I was at it, I named the buildings on Clifton’s campus after some Antioch people.
I finished the book, walked a block and a half to Fifth Avenue, and turned in the manuscript to my agent, who dutifully sent it to Hamling, who thought it was just fine, even if it didn’t have anybody screwing in a grease pit. I was invited to pick a new pen name, and chose Andrew Shaw. And Mr. Shaw now had an assignment to produce regularly for Nightstand, even as Mr. Lord was still very much in demand at Midwood. The only place that didn’t want me, it turned out, was Antioch.
It was not long after I turned in Campus Tramp and started writing something else that a letter from Antioch’s Student Personnel Committee reached me at the Rio, informing me that a review of my performance the preceding year left them with the sense that I might be happier elsewhere.
I thought that was damned perceptive of them. I would indeed be happier elsewhere, no question about it, and wasn’t it considerate of them to point that out to me? I’d already tried to drop out once, had been talked out of it by my parents, but now I had the perfect excuse. I’d been, as the British say, sent down. (It sounds much nicer than expelled, doesn’t it?) And, having been sent down, I could stay down. I was free.
I think–––and thought at the time–––that I could have talked my way back in. The tone of the letter suggested as much. But why would I want to do that? I had books to write.
#
And then a curious thing happened. Campus Tramp was published, and word got around Yellow Springs that it was my revenge on the school, that I’d savaged the place as a way of getting even.
Getting even for what, for God’s sake?
For expelling me? That was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. For schooling me for several years? I can’t think where I might have more enjoyably or profitably spent those particular years. I had no quarrel with the place, and if it was anything vis–à–vis Antioch, the book was a wink and a nod, a veritable homage.
Besides, when I wrote it I still fully expected to return to Yellow Springs in the fall. I had a year to go, and then I was scheduled to graduate. I didn’t much want to go back, but I’d planned to do it anyway, so I certainly didn’t think of myself as burning any bridges with Campus Tramp.
Go figure.
. . .Now my agent informed me that a new publisher, one Bill Hamling, was starting a company to be called Nightstand Books, and that I’d been chosen to write for them. Midwood had been paying me $600 a book, and Hamling would pay $750.
I decided a college novel might be just the ticket. I’d been trying to figure out what to try for Fawcett/Crest–––they, after all, had paid me $2000 for that lesbian novel. But on some level I didn’t really believe I was good enough to write for that good a house, and that kept me from trying. I’d been thinking my second book for Crest might be set on a campus, and when Nightstand came along I took that idea and aimed it at them.
And wrote Campus Tramp in a couple of weeks.
The only college with which I was familiar was Antioch, so it was an easy decision to set the book there–––or at its fictional equivalent, which I called Clifton. And, to amuse myself and any other Antiochian who might read the thing, I gave every character in the book the name of an actual Antioch dormitory as a surname. Since most of the dorms were named after people, guaranteeing them the immortality of, say, Louis J. Bennett, it wasn’t a stretch to fasten their names to human beings, albeit fictional ones.
And, while I was at it, I named the buildings on Clifton’s campus after some Antioch people.
I finished the book, walked a block and a half to Fifth Avenue, and turned in the manuscript to my agent, who dutifully sent it to Hamling, who thought it was just fine, even if it didn’t have anybody screwing in a grease pit. I was invited to pick a new pen name, and chose Andrew Shaw. And Mr. Shaw now had an assignment to produce regularly for Nightstand, even as Mr. Lord was still very much in demand at Midwood. The only place that didn’t want me, it turned out, was Antioch.
It was not long after I turned in Campus Tramp and started writing something else that a letter from Antioch’s Student Personnel Committee reached me at the Rio, informing me that a review of my performance the preceding year left them with the sense that I might be happier elsewhere.
I thought that was damned perceptive of them. I would indeed be happier elsewhere, no question about it, and wasn’t it considerate of them to point that out to me? I’d already tried to drop out once, had been talked out of it by my parents, but now I had the perfect excuse. I’d been, as the British say, sent down. (It sounds much nicer than expelled, doesn’t it?) And, having been sent down, I could stay down. I was free.
I think–––and thought at the time–––that I could have talked my way back in. The tone of the letter suggested as much. But why would I want to do that? I had books to write.
#
And then a curious thing happened. Campus Tramp was published, and word got around Yellow Springs that it was my revenge on the school, that I’d savaged the place as a way of getting even.
Getting even for what, for God’s sake?
For expelling me? That was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. For schooling me for several years? I can’t think where I might have more enjoyably or profitably spent those particular years. I had no quarrel with the place, and if it was anything vis–à–vis Antioch, the book was a wink and a nod, a veritable homage.
Besides, when I wrote it I still fully expected to return to Yellow Springs in the fall. I had a year to go, and then I was scheduled to graduate. I didn’t much want to go back, but I’d planned to do it anyway, so I certainly didn’t think of myself as burning any bridges with Campus Tramp.
Go figure.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1959
14 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Block
768 books2,995 followersLawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 12, 2015
CAMPUS TRAMP is the story of a young woman, new to college looking to find fulfillment and purpose through education at Clifton College. She gets an education, just not the one she deliberately set out for.
Linda Shepard's only sexual encounters where on the shy side of the explicit prior to arriving at college, free from her family and small town life, she instantly connects with a stand-up gentlemen but diverts her attention towards the rougher crowd after being briefly introduced to the local newspaper editor Don Gibbs.
Looking for love in the wrong places, she ends up having an almost fatal attraction, smothering Don with time (in and out of bed) to such an extent that her education suffers as does her relationship.
Cast out following Don's frank break-up, Linda finds herself broken hearted and cold bedded. Seeking the obliterate the pain of a love lost she pushes her most desirable asset, her body, on any young man willing to love her a little, if only to satisfy a craving.
CAMPUS TRAMP is like nothing I've read before and comes across as a mixture of sleaze and literature. An odd and unlikely combination yet apt in my opinion. Block explores the journey and pain of self discovery through the blatant disregard and destructive nature of self ridicule and carelessness to evolution via redemption and self awareness. CAMPUS TRAMP is much more than the title suggests and was a great pulp find.
Read the full review on my blog: http://justaguythatlikes2read.blogspo...
Linda Shepard's only sexual encounters where on the shy side of the explicit prior to arriving at college, free from her family and small town life, she instantly connects with a stand-up gentlemen but diverts her attention towards the rougher crowd after being briefly introduced to the local newspaper editor Don Gibbs.
Looking for love in the wrong places, she ends up having an almost fatal attraction, smothering Don with time (in and out of bed) to such an extent that her education suffers as does her relationship.
Cast out following Don's frank break-up, Linda finds herself broken hearted and cold bedded. Seeking the obliterate the pain of a love lost she pushes her most desirable asset, her body, on any young man willing to love her a little, if only to satisfy a craving.
CAMPUS TRAMP is like nothing I've read before and comes across as a mixture of sleaze and literature. An odd and unlikely combination yet apt in my opinion. Block explores the journey and pain of self discovery through the blatant disregard and destructive nature of self ridicule and carelessness to evolution via redemption and self awareness. CAMPUS TRAMP is much more than the title suggests and was a great pulp find.
Read the full review on my blog: http://justaguythatlikes2read.blogspo...
September 26, 2020
Long before Lawerence Block hit the big time with his Matthew Scudder crime series he was cranking out two sleazers a month for the likes of Midwood and Nightstand. Campus Tramp, written under the Andrew Shaw byline, was Block's fifth novel. In comparing this to Donald Westlake's Campus Doll, I'd say it has more depth, more nuance, and more style and voice. The main difference is that Block seems to be having fun with it and Westlake seemed to be going through the motions by then. The plot here is straightforward: Linda is going away to college determined to lose her virginity. She quickly falls for the editor of the school paper, beds him, moves in and becomes obsessed. He dumps her and she proceeds to work her way through all the men on campus. On the verge of being kicked out of college, she rallies, quits the guys and the booze and starts cramming three weeks before finals. Until, just before her last final she finds out she is . . . wait for it . . . pregnant. What is she to do? Do hills look like white elephants? Not great, but not bad for a book written in a couple of weeks. Fun to see Block's early style developing.
July 21, 2011
I actually read this book back in 1960 when I was 12 years old. Softcore porn was my version of Young Adult lit in those days. My father bought dozens of these paperbacks with wonderful sleazy covers for 35 cents each, and (unknown to him) I devoured them. It was my sex education, which was pretty weird because most of the sex was described as an embrace fading to dot dot dot... As the 1960's progressed, the books became far more graphic, and so did my education. Campus Tramp is in the early dot dot dot tradition, and it was much better written than most of the dot dot dots. You have to judge softcore as you would any other genre (such as horror) where there are certain unlikely conventions (such as bloodsucking zombies). In the softcore genre, the unlikely convention includes lots of unlikely sex. Given the convention, Campus Tramp is nicely written. Having just reread it after a 50 year gap, I'm glad to see I was exposed to some decent writing at that age when my schoolteachers were trying to expose me to the old white dead English masters. The new edition includes some irrelevant black and white photos for further titillation, equally softcore. Read this for fun without high expectations - and for a time capsule of 1959 morality - and enjoy the ride.
January 12, 2022
6.5/10 - Early (1959) Lawrence Block erotica. Sure, not his finest work, but cool Blockisms abound.
From the afterward:
I'll be the last person to urge anyone to read it, but if you do, I suggest you adopt the attitude of the tomcat who had an affair with the skunk. As you'll recall, he told his friends he enjoyed it for as long as he could stand it.
From the afterward:
I'll be the last person to urge anyone to read it, but if you do, I suggest you adopt the attitude of the tomcat who had an affair with the skunk. As you'll recall, he told his friends he enjoyed it for as long as he could stand it.
May 21, 2017
We're all likely reading this because it's Block. Didn't care about the characters, wanted to get through it quickly and the writing was rudimentary.
July 16, 2011
Lawrence Block wrote this book when he was 21, in the summer after his junior year in college. He explains in his afterward to the e-book edition how he set this novel in a fictionalized version of his alma mater, Antioch College. Character surnames are taken from school dormitories. One of the main characters has a job as school newspaper editor, which was Block's job while he was on campus. In fact, this book has become a cult classic on the Antioch campus. According to IMDB, it was the basis for a 45-minute student film called Antioch Adventures.
The book itself has serious flaws--some innane plot twists, and over-reliance on sex scenes that are too metaphoric and certainly not graphic enough to qualify as erotica (if that was indeed the original intent). But the book does tackle some controversial themes for 1960 including living as a closet homosexual and abortion.
Even at the age of 21, Block certainly displayed a talent for sketching characters and driving a plot forward (even when it when stretches plausibility). All in all, I have to say I enjoyed it despite myself.
Surprisingly, this was actually the fifth book LB wrote, according to his afterward:
1. Strange Are the Ways of Love
2. Carla
3. A Strange Kind of Love
4. Born to be Bad
5. Campus Tramp
The book itself has serious flaws--some innane plot twists, and over-reliance on sex scenes that are too metaphoric and certainly not graphic enough to qualify as erotica (if that was indeed the original intent). But the book does tackle some controversial themes for 1960 including living as a closet homosexual and abortion.
Even at the age of 21, Block certainly displayed a talent for sketching characters and driving a plot forward (even when it when stretches plausibility). All in all, I have to say I enjoyed it despite myself.
Surprisingly, this was actually the fifth book LB wrote, according to his afterward:
1. Strange Are the Ways of Love
2. Carla
3. A Strange Kind of Love
4. Born to be Bad
5. Campus Tramp
July 16, 2011
Lawrence Block wrote this book when he was 21, in the summer after his junior year in college. He explains in his afterward to the e-book edition how he set this novel in a fictionalized version of his alma mater, Antioch College. Character surnames are taken from school dormitories. One of the main characters has a job as school newspaper editor, which was Block's job while he was on campus. In fact, this book has become a cult classic on the Antioch campus. According to IMDB, it was the basis for a 45-minute student film called Antioch Adventures.
The book itself has serious flaws--some innane plot twists, and over-reliance on sex scenes that are too metaphoric and certainly not graphic enough to qualify as erotica (if that was indeed the original intent). But the book does tackle some controversial themes for 1960 including living as a closet homosexual and abortion.
Even at the age of 21, Block certainly displayed a talent for sketching characters and driving a plot forward (even when it when stretches plausibility). All in all, I have to say I enjoyed it despite myself.
Surprisingly, this was actually the fifth book LB wrote, according to his afterward:
1. Strange Are the Ways of Love
2. Carla
3. A Strange Kind of Love
4. Born to be Bad
5. Campus Tramp
The book itself has serious flaws--some innane plot twists, and over-reliance on sex scenes that are too metaphoric and certainly not graphic enough to qualify as erotica (if that was indeed the original intent). But the book does tackle some controversial themes for 1960 including living as a closet homosexual and abortion.
Even at the age of 21, Block certainly displayed a talent for sketching characters and driving a plot forward (even when it when stretches plausibility). All in all, I have to say I enjoyed it despite myself.
Surprisingly, this was actually the fifth book LB wrote, according to his afterward:
1. Strange Are the Ways of Love
2. Carla
3. A Strange Kind of Love
4. Born to be Bad
5. Campus Tramp
February 7, 2017
Unlike a lot of amateur stories I read this actually has a beginning, middle, and end with some character development. It's pretty racy by late 50s standards. I suppose since it was the late 50s there had to be a happy ending and moral to the story.
March 8, 2011
Fair bit of nonsense and obviously an early work from Lawrence but I'm such a fan I'll read anything of his.
February 22, 2019
Is what it is, only read if this is your thing, or you want to read everything from Lawrence Block
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews