Gutter Road by Robert Silverberg (originally published as by "Don Elliott," 1964) and You Can't Stop Me by Robert Silverberg (originally published as Lust Lover by "Dan Eliot," 1963)
Up until last month, these two titles had been forgotten books, then Stark House reissued them at the beginning of April in one volume as part of their Noir Classics line. Both were among the 190 erotic paperbacks that Silverberg penned in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly for various imprints of William Hamling's Greenleaf Publishing. These softcore novels provided a reliable training ground for many writers who would go on to bigger and better things, including Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Evan Hunter, John Jakes, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Harlan Ellison, Hal Dresner, and Arnold Hano. (Hamling's company also issued Regency Books, a paperback line that issued books by Robert Bloch, Avram Davidson, Robert Sheckley, "Cordwainer Smith," B. Traven, Philp Jose Farmer, Algis Budrys, and Clarence Cooper, Jr., among others; he also published the men's magazine Rogue, and early in his career several science fiction magazines, including Imagination and Imaginative Tales.)
Silverberg's erotic novels (he would typically write one about every two weeks -- along with his other works) were a sexed-up version of noir. His descriptions were vague enough to be enticing but never truly graphic. A blurb on the back cover of the Stark House edition nails it: "Sexier than anything written today, with the best parts hidden, like the best writers do." The books also serve as morality plays (immorality plays?) in which those doing bad things according to the standards of the time usually get their comeuppance, sometime violently, sometime ironically. Beacuase these are erotic novels, there is a lot of sex -- sex in every way, shape, and form to keep things interesting. (Really kinky, weird sex is usually glossed over in favor of the more mainsteam sort.) Still, the reader gets more than his (seldom is it her) share of heaving bosoms, tight smooth buttocks, and deep-set navels.
Gutter Road tells the tale of Fred Bauman, a married accountant with a teen-aged daughter. On his way home from work, he gives a ride to a young woman who seduces him. It's the first time he's broken his marriage vows in 17 years of marriage. The girl blackmails him, threatening to accuse him of rape and threatening to tell his wife. The girl has used this con before, and it has kept her and her "boyfriend" with a steady flow of money. Fred, meanwhile, struggles to come up with the cash as his imagination sees his marriage and his career going down the drain. At home, Fred's wife is a secret alcoholic who has begun a torrid affair with a neighbor. His daughter has become obsessed with sex, which leads her to a terrible confrontation. Soon there's violence and murder, which spawns additional murder. As the book spins to its conclusion, no one is getting off lightly.
You Can't Stop Me starts with Lou Andreas comitting rape and murder -- the fifty-eighth he has committed in the ten years since he was 17. Lou targets only prositutes, believing he is punishing them for a humiliating experience he had in high school. As a traveling salesman, he targets his victims in various cities across the country, with seldom more than one victim in a city, and often spaced out over time to avoid setting a pattern. In between murders, he has casual sex but never with prostitutes. At one time, he challenged himself to kill a prostitute in every city that housed a major league baseball team (this was back in the late fifties-early sixties, remember -- fewer teams back then). We flash back to his various murders. Three while he was in high school. Another the night he enlisted in the army to avoid marrying his high school sweetheart whom he had impregnated. Another half dozen or so during his two years in the Army. And on and on. Sex and death become merged in his mind. Sometimes death instead of sex. At least once, sex after death. Usually he strangled his victims. Sometimes he opted for a more bloody way of murder. Murder had become both casual and calculating. Then he came across the hooker who had started his murder spree by laughing at him back when he was 17. After ten years and 58 bodies, he was ready for payback.
Both novels come across almoist comically as male fantasies, with You Can't Stop Me serving also as a revenge fantasy. While the fantasies are presented in broad strokes, Silverberg hones in on realistic details and personal trauma to make both books compelling reads.
Robert Silverberg is best known as one of the most accomplished science fiction writers of our time. One basic theme that runs through most of his SF work is that of redemption. You will find no redemption for the protgonists in these two books.
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