Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Paperback 133: The Doctor on Bean Street / Simon Kent (Dell D143)

Paperback 133: Dell D143 (1st ptg, 1954)
Title: The Doctor on Bean Street
Author: Simon Kent
Cover artist: Bill George (yay, an artist credit!)

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:
  • How many visual signifiers of "squalor" does one cover need? Sheesh. Look at that guy's shirt. The overflowing trash ... and did the Hulk have at the railing to those steps!? Bill George appears to have invented a new color: filth.
  • "He knew the hungry passions of the damned ... and he knew Ingrid Bergman, who liked to stand on his front stoop, exuding a radiant aura of limeness."
  • "We who wear the beret have a silent, secret language all our own..."

Best things about this back cover:
  • "Street Walker" - subtle!
  • "... about a cold ..." HA ha. Nice euphemism for gonorrhea / unwanted pregnancy
  • O My God why would anyone read this book? It appears to be about a doctor so jaded that his only remaining joy in life is imagining the ways in which his patients will, inevitably, commit suicide. This cover copy makes Camus seem sunny.

Page 123~

Slap on a heap of records, without discretion, hook them on the spindle, start the turntable off. Then the wizard begins.


Yeah, that's right: wizard. Bet you didn't see that coming.

~RP

4 comments:

JamiSings said...

Is it just me or is her nose curled up in that "I smell rotten meat/dog farts" way?

Anonymous said...

She's sniffing because even over all that street garbage she can smell Filthy James Coburn there staring at her...

Corey Wilde said...

Glad you told me it was Coburn, I thought it was Jim Hutton.

Michael5000 said...

Lady looks like a dude.