Sticking It To The Man

Description

From civil rights and Black Power to the New Left and gay liberation, the 1960s and 70s saw a host of movements shake the status quo. The impact of feminism, anticolonial struggles, wildcat industrial strikes, and antiwar agitation were all felt globally. With social strictures and political structures challenged at every level, pulp and popular fiction could hardly remain unaffected. Feminist, gay, lesbian, black, and other previously marginalized authors broke into crime, thrillers, erotica, and other paperback genres previously dominated by conservative, straight, white males. For their part, pulp hacks struck back with bizarre takes on the revolutionary times, creating fiction that echoed the Nixonian backlash and the coming conservatism of Thatcherism and Reaganism. Sticking It to the Man tracks the ways in which the changing politics and culture of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s were reflected in pulp and popular fiction in the United States, the UK, and Australia. Featuring more t

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Popular culture

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 05 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781629636665
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

CONTRIBUTORS
Scott Adlerberg
Steve Aldous
Eric Beaumont
Danae Bosler
Michael Bronski
Brian Coffey
David James Foster
Michael A. Gonzales
Molly Grattan
Brian Greene
Woody Haut
Alley Hector
Emory Holmes II
Maitland McDonagh
Iain McIntyre
Bill Mohr
Andrew Nette
Kinohi Nishikawa
Bill Osgerby
Jenny Pausacker
Gary Phillips
J. Kingston Pierce
Susie Thomas
Nicolas Tredell
Linda S. Watts
David Whish-Wilson

Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980
Edited by Iain McIntyre and Andrew Nette
All text copyright 2020 the individual authors
This edition PM Press 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
The editors and the publishers wish to thank all those who supplied images and gave permission to reproduce copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders, and the publishers welcome communication from any copyright owners from whom permission was inadvertently not obtained. In such cases, we will be pleased to obtain appropriate permission and provide suitable acknowledgment in future editions.
ISBN: 978-1-62963-524-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949081
Cover by John Yates / www.stealworks.com
Interior design by briandesign
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Printed in the USA.
Contents
A Total Assault on the Culture? Pulp and Popular Fiction during the Long Sixties Iain McIntyre and Andrew Nette
Survival Mode: The Crime Fiction of Chester Himes Scott Adlerberg
Fictions about Pulp: Gay Pulp in the Years before Stonewall Michael Bronski
To Sir, with Love : Race and the Unreal City of the Colonial Imagination Susie Thomas
The Odd Girls Journey out of the Shadows: Lesbi-Pulp Novels Alley Hector
City of Night , John Rechy Andrew Nette
The Cool, the Square, and the Tough: The Archetypes of Black Male Characters in Mystery and Crime Novels Gary Phillips
Resilience and Representation: Representations of Aboriginal Australians in Pulp and Popular Fiction David Whish-Wilson
Black Lightning , Dymphna Cusack Andrew Nette
Ferment in Fiction: British Novels and Radical Movements, 1965-75 Nicolas Tredell
Betty Collins and the Australian Industrial Novel Danae Bosler
Hog Butcher , Ronald L. Fair Michael Gonzales
Young, Hip, and Angry: Pulp Fiction and Campus Revolt Brian Coffey
The Player: Iceberg Slim and the Allure of the Street Kinohi Nishikawa
Canadian Carnage: Quebecois Separatism through the Lens of Men s Adventure Novels Iain McIntyre
Cold Fire Burning: The Nathan Heard Interviews Eric Beaumont
The Soul Brothers and Sister Lou , Kristin Hunter Molly Grattan
Blowback: Late 1960s and 70s Pulp and Popular Fiction about the Vietnam War Andrew Nette
A Black Sinclair Lewis: The Novels of Robert Deane Pharr Brian Greene
The Presidential Plot , Stanley Johnson Kinohi Nishikawa
Adolescent Homosexuality: A Novel Problem Jenny Pausacker
Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light , John A. Williams Andrew Nette
Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! The Yippie Literaries Bill Osgerby
Fifty Shades of Gay: An Introduction to the Gay Adult Pulp of the 1970s Maitland McDonagh
Emotions Doesn t Change Facts: Remembering Joseph Hansen Bill Mohr
Black Is Beautiful: The Superspade Novels of Joseph Perkins Greene J. Kingston Pierce
What Men Fear: An Interview with M.F. Beal Linda Watts
Shafted: On Ernest R. Tidyman and the Makings of Shaft Michael A. Gonzales
Ernest Tidyman s Shaft Steve Aldous
Lithe, Lusty, and Liberated: Pulp Feminism Bill Osgerby
City on the Brink: Wally Ferris s Across 110th Andrew Nette
The Radical: Donald Goines in the Wake of Civil Rights Kinohi Nishikawa
The Last Refuge , Edward Lindall Iain McIntyre
Pulp Fiction and The Little Red Schoolbook : The Brief Life of Gold Star Publications Andrew Nette
All Our Heroes Are Dead: Fictional Vigilantes of the Seventies David James Foster
Lone Wolf: The Vigilante Novels of Barry N. Malzberg Andrew Nette
Rubyfruit Jungle , Rita Mae Brown Iain McIntyre
Incident at La Junta , Oliver Lange Andrew Nette
Get Radcliff! Gary Phillips
No Ordinary Joe: Joe Nazel and the Pursuit of Black History Emory Holmes II
Black Samurai , Marc Olden Andrew Nette
The Jones Men Brian Greene
The Front Runner , Patricia Nell Warren Iain McIntyre
The Dark Angel Series, James D. Lawrence Molly Grattan
The Monkey Wrench Gang , Edward Abbey Iain McIntyre
Looking for Mr. Goodbar , Judith Rossner Andrew Nette
Hatchett , Lee McGraw Molly Grattan
Meridian , Alice Walker Iain McIntyre
The Real Noir: Dambudzo Marechera s Journey from Rhodesia to Britain to Zimbabwe Woody Haut
The Love Bombers , Gloria D. Miklowitz Molly Grattan
It Can t Happen to Me , Arnold Madison Molly Grattan
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index
The Big Fix (Pocket, 1978)

Whisper Their Love (Gold Medal, 1957)

The Heart In Exile (Four Square, 1953)

Insurrection (Belmont, 1970)
A Total Assault on the Culture?
Pulp and Popular Fiction during the Long Sixties
As has been widely celebrated, derided, and mythologized, the 1960s was a time of significant social and political change across the world. Decolonization, second-wave feminism, mass opposition to conscription and the Vietnam War, Black Power, wildcat strikes, campus ferment, lesbian and gay liberation, a flood of hip and groovy consumer items, and the radical countercultural group the White Panthers infamous call (channeling poet and social activist Ed Sanders) for a Total Assault on the Culture by any means necessary, including rock n roll, dope and fucking in the streets -all of these swirled together in a surge of radical and rebellious ideas and practices challenging everyday life and existing structures. In some cases it transformed them, while in others it merely retooled them for continued exploitation and new forms of ennui. Given that many of the key social and political trends associated with the era extended back into the previous decade and didn t fully unfold until the mid-1970s, some have come to label this extended period the long sixties.
Inspired by, and part of, these revolutionary times were a host of wild and challenging novels. While many of these became intrinsic to the ferment and zeitgeist of the period, potboilers by the likes of Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins, and Arthur Hailey continued to dominate sales, with only the occasional breakthrough of left-field works from Rita Mae Brown, Kurt Vonnegut, Alex Haley, and Gore Vidal. For every novel and novelist who became iconic, hundreds have been forgotten and whole genres written off.
This collection brings a number of overlooked, entertaining, and revealing texts and writers from 1950 to 1980 back into the light. It also explores how popular culture in the form of fiction dealt with and portrayed the radicalism and social shifts of the era. Unable to cover the entire world, we concentrate on the United States, Australia, and the UK, three countries which all had homegrown publishing industries dealing in mass-market paperbacks and original paperback titles. Although this collection considers books dealing with dystopian and utopian near-future scenarios, the sheer volume of New Wave and other experimentation among science fiction will be covered in our next book, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1960 to 1985 .
Sticking It to the Man s contributors mainly focus on novels that were aimed at a mass audience, written in an accessible style, or in genres that were then highly popular. Much of this output could be labeled pulp and was written quickly by dozens of little-known authors eager for their next advance and for whom mainstream publishing success remained elusive. Some of the books were penned by scribes who were successful in making it from the margins into the bestseller lists. Some of have become accepted and analyzed in academic and highbrow literary circles long after their original publication. Some aimed for and received such recognition upon release. Many remain undeservedly obscure.
The long sixties was not just a time of social and political upheaval but also took in the heyday of the paperback novel. During the mid to late 1940s this format displaced pulp magazines as the primary fictional and printed form of mass entertainment. By the 1950s, novels increasingly made their debut as paperbacks, and because paperback publishers put out more titles and often paid better rates than their more highbrow competitors, this allowed a growing number of authors to make it into print, if not sustain a comfortable living. Even with television making increasing inroads, novels remained hugely popular. By the 1970s medium-to-large publishers could still expect the majority of their successful releases to sell in the tens of thousands or more. Alongside these major firms, smaller outfits eked out reasonable profits through the production of pornography and genre fiction. Much of their output represented pale imitations of the books their bigger rivals were producing, but some of it was superior due to their propensity to take a chance on something different or unusual. This fiction, particularly in the fields of crime, erotica, thrillers, and romance, retained the approach of the 1930s magazine-based pulp: quickly written and produced for cheap thrills with a focus on action, titillation, and the sensational, and little expectation or view to posterity.
The thousands of novels produced from the 1950s to 1980 that deal with social change remain fascinating for a number of reasons. On a historical, cultural, and sociological level they give the modern reader an insight into how political and social transformations and challenges