Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Paperback 381: Lord Johnnie / Leslie Turner White (Pocket Books 7010)

Paperback 381: Pocket Books 7010 (7th ptg, 1961)

Title: Lord Johnnie
Author: Leslie Turner White
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: SOLD!! (1-11-11)

PB7010.Johnnie

Best things about this cover:
  • This is a book about a middle-aged woman fed up with her adult son who won't move out of the house and get a job already: "Lord, Johnnie, I am sick and tired finding your hoop earrings all over my damn house."
  • Did I say "adult son?" I meant "flamboyantly gay adult son ... who is really into community theater."
  • "Live pink or die, bitches!"

PB7010bc.Johnnie

Best things about this back cover:

  • Look, all the sword-into-noose imagery in the world is not going to make me believe that guy on the front cover likes to fuck women.

Page 123~

Not over fourteen, he had the look of a crazed ewe, and every sound in the prison set his thin body to quaking.

Every once in a while, Page 123 pays off very, very big. Is he quaking in fear or sexual excitement. I guess I just have to imagine how a crazed ewe would react if she were in prison ... yes, that works.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

14 comments:

ravenspb said...

Okay, you lost me with the gay jokes. It's too bad, because you are generally pretty interesting. It's your blog, so you're free to say what you'd lie. I am equally free to walk away from it. I wanted to let you know why I did.

Tulse said...

"In eighteenth-century England, a 'lady of quality' could marry a condemned criminal to escape her debts." Seriously?

And yeah, it's been a long while since the Page 123 has been so special.

Rex Parker said...

I didn't know I was homophobic. I better tell my gay best friend. He'll want to know. :(

Samantha said...

SOLD. I'll read it, although no doubt any descriptions of fencing will be horribly incorrect.

Rex Parker said...

SOLD it is. You will read it AND report back, right?

ravenspb said...

Never said you were homophobic. I didn't get anything at all from your post that you have an unreasoning fear of homosexuals. Still, a fag joke is a fag joke. Just because it offended me does not mean anyone else would be bothered by it. I as only speaking for myself with my comment.

shushie said...

"Look, all the sword-into-noose imagery in the world is not going to make me believe that guy on the front cover likes to fuck women."

Best comment I've read in awhile.

Samantha said...

Hmm, do you think I can find it at a library? If so, I totally will. I'm blogging book reviews this year!

JamiSings said...

@Samantha - If your local library doesn't have it, ask for an Inter-Library Loan AKA "ILL." You can get books from all over the country, even in some cases anywhere in the world. You sometimes have to pay for them. Like one lady got her book from Hawaii so she had to pay for it. But I've gotten books from New York, Utah, even The Library Of Congress.

Only thing I could not get was an Alan Moore graphic novel. Probably because it's considered pornographic - but that's why I wanted to read it, because of the controversy.

borky said...

"Not over fourteen" - does that refer to his age? Prisoner Fourteen? Or what happened to him in Cell Fourteen?

Sorry, Rexy - and ravenspb - but here I go again with my gay 'code' thesis, 'cause everything about this book reeks of it being based on my purported ancestor Lord Byron, a supposed pansexualist, (a Gore Vidal term), who'd allegedly shag anything in sight, including 'crazed ewes', never mind crazed youths!

The point's made his marriage's one of convenience, i.e., she's his 'beard', and although the phrase 'she opened her mouth' is skilfully placed between the noose and the sword to imply the act of fellatio, the astute'll note she's able to scream, telling us not only is her gob not gagging on 'pork sword', but said pork sword's 'stabbing' her somewhere she wan't expecting it.

p.s.

The campy-looking Spandau Ballet refugee on the cover reminds me of a mate of mine who was actually straight as they come - pardon the pun - but he'd discovered the bigger the hoops, the more action he got from girls determined to convert him from being 'gay'.

DemetriosX said...

I'd say the only thing that really makes this guy look other than heterosexual is that earring. A hoop that big just can't be worn seriously by anyone other than a very effeminate man.

The pink shirt isn't all that indicative. The guy could just be a preppy.

There's also the fact that he looks like a cross between James Dean and either Frank Gorshin or Robert Stack.

Rex Parker said...

Preppies don't normally wear shirts that put their freshly waxed chests on display. Nor do they use that much hair product, or longingly contemplate phallic objects (to be fair, neither do most gay people).

Samantha said...

*grin* Thanks, JamiSings. Are you also a librarian?

Random White Guy said...

As phallic symbols go, that's a rather... disappointing sword.