Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Paperback 205: Third Ward, Newark / Curtis Lucas (Lion Books 80)

Paperback 205: Lion Books 80 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Third Ward, Newark
Author: Curtis Lucas
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (3/12/09)


Best things about this cover:

  • "Oh, U.S. 1, please don't leave me! I love you so much! You're the only .... one. For me."
  • "... the jolt of her life!"??? Way to make a brutal rape sound like a caffeine high. Jeez.
  • If those are her assailants, they're not fleeing very well. "Hurry, let's ... damn! My contact lens! Hang on, Pete."

Best things about this back cover:

  • "Wonnie?" Really. That's almost as bad as "Mihie." Is naming characters really That challenging?
  • Revenge! Sweet, now I want to read this. I hope it is less brutal than "I Spit On Your Grave," which I never saw, but just hearing about it made me kind of sick.
  • She "ripened" on "filthy" "pavements." Like all the finest fruit. What an endearing portrayal of your heroine.
  • "I'm sorry, honey, but I just can't sleep in such a comically small bed. There, there. Let's get out of the kid's furniture section and see what we can find."

Page 123~

Wonnie came back from the kitchen and sat beside Joe. "I'm gonna work here every night, Joe. I'm gonna cook all the corn bread and biscuits, and I'll cook greens with real seasoning in them. In a little while that white man over in the diner will lose all his customers to us."


Worst. Revenge. Ever.

~RP

8 comments:

Little Lj said...

Ok, in the first picture on the back cover, she's totally doing 'I'm A Little Teapot' all wrong...

Erik said...

I can't believe you didn't comment on her "thrust to revenge"!

Anonymous said...

Ew, ew, ew!

My guess is, "Wonnie" is some hideous , phonetic diminutive of "Juanita".

That is the shortest road sign EVER. And apparently, some distance from the road itself...

What, no fried chicken and watermelon? Poor revenge indeed.

JRSM said...

Giving her the surname Brown seems something of a failure of the imagination.

Eunice said...

Am I the only one who thinks in the first picture on the back cover she kinda looks like a life-size cardboard cutout? "Darn Wonnie display won't fit in the car!"

You know if she just cooked greens then her revenge would be stupid, but putting in real seasonings, well, that just makes the difference doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

I was also surprised you didn't say anything about the "thrust for revenge". Also the author's difficulties with names apparently extends to titles (this may one of the most boring titles ever) and possibly pen names.

More seriously, I'm struck by the way black women are portrayed on so many of these covers. Most of them would need a good tan to be as dark as Lena Horne. I have heard that publishers claim that a black person on a cover can cut sales by as much as 10 %, even today, so I guess it would have been even worse back then. But it does make me wonder about the target audiences for these books.

justjack said...

Forget about "thrust for love." How could you ignore her "bone-aching hunger for love?" (heh. bone-aching.)

Then there's that Tobacco Road cover. Outside of Newark?

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