Paperback 443: The Sixth Man / Jess Stearn (MacFadden Books 60-106)

Paperback 443: MacFadden Books 60-106 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Sixth Man
Author: Jess Stearn
Cover artist: N/A

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• I know the cover wants to be ominous, with the suggestion that "you can't tell them apart" and "they're hiding among you," but the image just looks too much like the spinning wheel on a game show for me to be too "frightened": "Congratulations, you landed on Fabulous!" (love that the one-in-six is hot pink)
• Monotonous corporate drones ... or sophisticated men dancing in a Busby Berkeley / Ethel Merman movie? I can't decide.
• So *this* is what the NBA's "Sixth Man" award is all about ...

Best things about this back cover:

• "That's right, we gays have taken over, and we've hung Straighty up by his ankles. Let that be a warning to you. You better queer it up right now, see, or it's curtains for you!"
• I'm guessing this cover is a lot more scarifying than the actual book.
• The first two sentences here (particularly the second one) are pointless. "He is a chronicler of events..." Congratulations. I myself am an "eater of Doritos."

Page 123~

George looked like anything but the popular conception of a homosexual. He cut a manly figure, tall, strongly built, and was neatly but plainly dressed. And while he drank and talked fast, gesticulating a lot, so do hundreds of people I know on Madison Avenue who aren't queer.

Interesting, but you might want to rethink your certainty about those Madison Avenue people.

~RP

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