Put the kids to bed folks because today we’re talking sleaze! Classic softcore sleaze paperbacks to enhance the romance in your pants on Valentines Day. So, yes, adults only from this point on. This is the afterhours episode. The skinimax episode. The USA UP all night episode.
I am going to do a review of this book The Hustler by Laura Pope. We’re also going to talk about this fanzine/book called Sleaze Alley by Peter Enfantino and then we’ll do a showcase of my modest little sleaze collection (video only).
Before we get started, I want to clear up some of the misnomers of sleaze paperbacks. Number one, they aren’t hardcore. They aren’t smut or porn. Well, not as people in 2026 think of that stuff. I’m sure back in the 1950s and 60s this was hot material but to our present day minds, these books are an R-Rated movie. But even more than that, these books actually do try and tell a story. No matter how naughty and salacious they make it look and sound on the cover, there is usually something beside surface level shit going on. And I think that’s what removes them from the world of pornography.
I’ve only read a few, but from what I have read they are often dark in tone. Where the characters have emotional misgivings about their actions but an overwhelming urge to dose their flames.
Why are they intriguing? It’s a time capsule. An era frozen in time. These books would never be written today. They are not on par with where we are now. It’s kind of adorable. The innuendos and ways that the authors had to come up with creative ways to write about doing the deed without flat out saying will make you chuckle. And the stories contained within? Though some were written by unknown authors of dubious talent there are many written by famous genre authors we know and love like, Donald E Westlake, Lawrence Block, Robert Silvberberg, Harry Whittington and Evan Hunter. And the cover art while not quite the McGinnis and Lesser quality was stylistically original. I feel the art style encompasses a bit of innocence while still being suggestive. More like the look of an old ratty copy lying around a frat house in 1962 than a book hidden in some dark shady porn shop. It’s dirty but not that dirty.
The Hustler by Laura Pope
Magenta 1965
Cover artist unknown.
Our protagonist is Ted. He’s a young good lucking hustler working as a waiter at Hillstar, a high-class resort located in the Catskill Mountains. He likes to bed ladies. All kinds. All ages. He also likes money. He makes good money at the Hillstar but more importantly there are a lot of lonely ladies there. The story is told from his perspective in first person narrative, so we get to hear his thoughts and insights into the world around him.
We open with a softcore scene of him bedding a rich man’s lonely wife. She’s older but Ted doesn’t mind that she’s forty. She’s hot to trot and can’t get enough. She wants Ted to spend the night. Her husband will be here tomorrow. It’s their last night together. But there are strict rules that the help is not to fraternize with the guests and Ted knows that the chances of him getting caught leaving in the morning are much greater than at the current time of 2am. She starts crying. He watches her, detached. He has a distant coldness to him. We hear his inner monologue. He psychoanalyzes her and her husband. He speculates on the mental damage they are doing to their kids. He realizes he should feel bad for what he’s doing but he doesn’t. He even states that he likes the husband, he’s a great tipper. But what the hell, if it wasn’t him, it would be someone else.
The next day he sees his buddy acquaintance, Bernie. Bernie is a journalist and comes up to the Hillstar to hook up with ladies. He hangs around the lobby pretending to read literary books. The two are kind of friends though more in a way that they respect each other’s skills in the game. Ted is one hundred percent a loner though.
It’s now Friday night and the Hillstar is jammed pack. Ted sets the ladies on the back burner and works on his second favorite love, money. He’s a damn good waiter. He reads people. He knows what they want. And once again we get his analysis of people and how they behave in relation to who/what they are.
He slams teachers. He says all teachers ever talk about is how little they are paid. He simply finds it annoying. He never states an opinion on whether they are or not. It probably would never come into his mind. All he knows is that he isn’t going to be getting a good tip.
The doctors are golfers. They eat light and healthy. They make a lot of money plus they don’t report all of their income taxes. Once again, no moral judgement. He’s very aloof when it comes to ethics. All he cares about is that they will give him a decent tip.
I'm kind of loving this so far. I was taken aback by how interesting I found the Ted character to be. He’s a cynical and shallow opportunist. But he’s also charming, intelligent and perceptive. The narrative has a very removed fly-on-the-wall feeling. Even though Ted interacts with this world he is very detached. Someone who most of the guests probably don’t notice or give a second thought to unless they need him and he uses it to his benefit. He has emotions but they are faint and he only acts upon them after logically thinking about the feeling. He’s not a complete narcissist but is extremely confident.
He reminds me a lot of the Bateman character in Rules of Attraction.
There is another mild sex scene where he hooks up with a younger gal from Bernie’s table. And don’t worry, Bernie gets the other lady and there are plans to swap tomorrow night. Considering this is supposed to be triple x territory we are in, the scenes are all pretty bland for today’s standards. A Shannon Tweed movie level of naughtiness.
Reporter Bernie gives Ted a tip about a high-priced call girl that is here with a very rich person of importance from New York City. Ted doesn’t really care. How does that benefit him?
Here is where Linda enters the picture. She is Ted’s age; twenty-three. She is drop dead gorgeous with the body to match but it would cost Ted a whole month’s worth of pay to spend a night with her. He waits on her and her old man boyfriend. He is instantly smitten. He notices the couple aren’t getting along. She is flirty with Ted.
The inevitable invitation to make a late-night stop in her bedroom arrives. Oddly, Ted is interested in her as a person and keeps trying to get a dialogue going. With all the other ladies we just wanted a quick bang and he’s out. She doesn’t want to chat, she wants to get it on, so she taunts him. He finally submits but oops, her rich John boyfriend just opened the door. Ted scurries away.
The next afternoon he sneaks back up to her bedroom after a very odd breakfast meeting where she keeps telling him over and over in different ways that she is a whore. Mocking him with it. He hates it.
Yet here he is in her room again. This is the beginning of Ted losing his aloof exterior. Once again, he wants to talk. She goes off the rails this time, strips down and starts pleasuring herself in front of him all the while taunting him with “I’m a whore” talk and howling extreme orgasmic pleasure sounds. Finally, Ted leaves pissed without having ever touched her.
Deep stuff here, surprisingly! Linda is a real human being cracking at the seams. She’s not just there to pleasure you though at this point that’s how she sees herself. Why is Linda the one to melt Ted’s cold cold heart? Does he see himself in her and that’s why he is so disgusted when she debases herself?
The first half of this at the resort, is killer. I loved it. After the season is over he moves to New York City and here is where it takes a nosedive. He gets a job with a "motivational research outfit" which basically is a business where other businesses hire them to figure out why people buy one product over another. Ted admits that they usually just make it up. He finds it depressing and all of his coworkers are average men and he doesn’t connect. He lives a lonely life and thinks about Linda often.
He has random sexual encounters of an unbelievable nature. After paying ten dollars for a housewife turned hooker he decides, well, I might as well call Linda.
At her plush apartment he is very shitty with her about being a hooker. She admits that she doesn’t like the lifestyle, and her psychiatrist tells her she has self-destructive tendencies. Leaving Las Vegas!
They bang finally and she asks him to leave as she has a six o clock appointment. He is salty. Wants her to quit. In the midst of it all he tells her that he loves her. She tears up a little.
Absolutely tedious at this point. They argue a ton. He is so demeaning to her and acts like he owns her. He wants her to quit for him. And she’s like what will I do for money and he's like who cares. Quit for me. They go out on the town. Get wasted. At a fancy restaurant a man approaches her. He is some big wig and offers her a job for the night. She takes it and Ted flips. He finds a cheap hooker and bangs her. Goes home.
There are a bunch of people in the courtyard. Basically, an orgy. There is a girl on the porch who wants to go up to his room. She’s weird and asks all kinds of questions like how often married people do it. And then she wants him to nibble on her arm like a piece of corn.
All he thinks about is Lisa.
The playboy is gone. He's pathetic in this part but maybe that’s the point? He fell for a woman, and it ruins him. So, lame. Or maybe we are supposed to learn something else here? Maybe it’s a character study on people who suffer from self-destructive tendencies? Or maybe I am looking way too hard at a cheap and sleazy book that was probably written in an afternoon?
Lisa calls Ted. She tells him that she loves him and is quitting the life. He’s elated and then just as quickly defeated. She’s going back to her husband. Linda and Ted can’t be together because it will inevitably fail as neither of them are strong in character. There's no point. So, she might as well go back to her husband. This thing is depressing.
At the end of the day Ted is back at the Hillstar Resort. Everything is the same except him. The thrill he used to get hustling is empty. His buddy Bernie is there and tells him all about how he had to go out on a call. “Remember that hooker Lisa? She jumped off a building. Killed herself.” Bernie is amused that he couldn't afford her and now he's accidentally slipping on her brain matter on the sidewalk. It’s harsh but not unnecessary. This is the way the world saw Linda and the point is driven hard into Ted’s heart when he hears it.
Ted feels terrible. But what’s the point? Life is misery.
So, there we have it. Not very sexy. It was enjoyable on the front half and maybe even the back though the forced sexual encounters were ridiculous. It’s a bleak ending but if you are into movies like Rules of Attraction and Leaving Las Vegas this does have that same tone. Not to say that this is as well written but it’s not bad either. I give it a C+.
Sleaze Alley vol 1 by Peter Enfantino
Cimmaron Street Books 2025
It looks like it is sold out directly from the publisher, but it is available on Amazon.
My wife actually bought me my copy for my birthday last year. So, this isn’t a review copy or anything, I’m just sharing it because I think it’s cool.
Sleaze Alley is a zine/book containing nearly 100 reviews of vintage paperback sleaze from the 1960s all written by Enfantino himself. I haven’t read anything else by him but I do know of his Bare-Bones zine which has an online blog and physical issues, and he was a co-author of the Manhunt Companion which is a guidebook to Manhunt Magazine. And also, he lives in Gilbert Arizona which is where I used to work when I lived in Arizona. I wonder if we ever crossed paths at the bookstores??
What’s great about this other than the insightful and often-comical reviews is he’s done the hard work for you. He lists the pseudonyms and the cover artists, if at all possible. There are full color scans of the covers, and he has a four-star rating system where he judges the book on: The Story, The Sex and The Cover.
I marked a few interesting ones so we can take a closer look and see what he has to say about them.
First up is Beast of Shame from 1964. The author is credited as Don Holliday but it’s actually David Case. He looks to be mostly a horror author with many excursions into werewolf mythology. He even has an Arkham House release from 1980 titled The Third Grave. Cover artist for a Beast of Shame: unknown.
This is about a small-town detective with a bunch of murdered women on his hands. And a werewolf. A horny one who lays the babes and then slashes them to pieces. Enfantino tells us, not only is this sucker entertaining but it’s a real werewolf. No bait and switch.
Second up is Flesh Damned by Alan Marshall aka Donald E Westlake from 1964. Cover art by Robert Bonfils.
This one is a revenge story of a man who is out to kill the four men responsible for making his wife a drug-addled prostitute. He kills one and gets four years. When he comes out there is only one man left alive. The man keeps some young twins (adults!) around for carnal desires and when the husband finds him he ends up falling for the twins and lets just say, not a happy ending.
And finally, Flesh Hammer by John Baxter from 1963. Cover art by Robert Bonfils.
I picked this one because it is absolutely gnarly. There is a serial killer stalking the night called Jack the Hammer. He gets his namesake from smashing prostitutes with a hammer. Enfantino describes it as both an involving mystery and an absolute gore fest. The way he described it reminded me of a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie and coincidentally his movie Blood Feast was released the same year. Maybe a book to track down for all the slasher gore fans out there.
There are a lot of stinkers out there in the world of sleaze and the books aren’t usually cheap so to have a resource like Sleaze Alley is vital. Like I said, it’s available through Amazon and is a must have for anyone interested in the vintage sleaze genre. One other thing I learned while reading this book is that he mentions another book called Sin A Rama published by Feral House in 2004. I didn’t know this book existed and immediately ordered it directly from the Feral House website.
While you are waiting for your new books to arrive might I also suggest checking out Gary Lovisi’s youtube channel as he shows sleaze books from time to time and there is also a crazy extensive website called Vintage Greenleaf Classics which is a checklist of every book published by Greenleaf through 1959 to 1975.
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