All Shook Up - Peyson Antholz (1958)

 

The scan is here: All Shook Up - Peyson Antholz (1958.Ace D-306) (Darwin).cbr

Or you can read it online or download in .pdf from the Internet Archive here.

 

A paperback for y'all today.  I've been delving into the world of vintage paperbacks lately and having a great time of it.  In many ways, the paperback boom that roughly coincides with the end of the pulp era is a continuation of the fiction from the pulps.  The paperbacks feature many of the same authors and genres as the pulps and, indeed, were published and distributed by many of the same players to the same newsstands that the pulps had flourished on.  There's science fiction and western and romance novels, just like there are in the pulps. But many of the paperbacks of the 50s do have their own feel.  The cover art gets a little darker, and maybe "sleazier" elements creep in.  One of the most popular genres for today's collectors are the JD books.  You know - Juvenile Delinquents, gangs, ne'er do well bad boys and girls out for kicks and nothing more.  It's a generation and style that influenced degenerates and punk rockers and rockabilly types for decades to come.  All Shook Up takes it's name from the Elvis tune of 1957 (and who knows what the author originally had hoped to call it, these publishers might name a book whatever they thought would sell) and boasts a wicked cougar cover with two boys, one with a tattoo and the other with slicked-back jet black hair.  

The wild thing about the 50s paperbacks is that they are often just as little-explored as the pulps in terms of actual readership.  What are the juvenile delinquent books really about?  Some we recognize today because more well-known authors like Harlan Ellison wrote in the genre, but many of the JD novels by unrecognized or authors under alias go unread.  I couldn't find any reference or information about Peyson Antholz (which *could* point to a pen name) and the only reference I could find to All Shook Up is its inclusion in university collection of LGBQT literature.

So, today, a quick post and recommendation of All Shook Up by Peyson Antholz, a paperback original from Ace (and maybe sometime we'll get into the long and interesting history of Ace and A.A. Wyn and his wife, Rose).  Let me just say here that I found it an excellent read that skirted my expectations in frankness, subject matter, and even humanity.  All Shook Up takes place in the small town of Varoo, middle America, but in some respects anywhere America.  The coming of age tale of Alan Peerman and the Summer of his 17th year, All Shook Up is of a similar cloth to Nicolas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause in that Alan looks out at the adult world and sees a lot hypocrisy while his peers shows tendencies towards violence and bullying the meek or the odd.  Sexual anxieties of the regular teenage variety are compounded by Alan's molestation by a visiting clergyman when he was younger and the fact he just doesn't know where he fits in.  His home life offers little comfort, as his womanizing father is a queer role model while his mother takes abuse and turns to the church that abused him.  It's no wonder that Alan starts to go off the rails in desperation as the novel barrels towards tragedy.

I left a little grub on the back cover. It's a messy world out there, after all, so I don't my J.D. books a little rough :D

 

I like to include back covers whenever I share paperback art even when I don't take the time to pretty them up.  First, paperback design can be so amazing, and there's an art involved in the layout that can be separate from the art of the cover painting.  Second, you see what the publisher thinks they are selling - what the hook is for the reader.  A great back cover can pull you in just as much or more so as the cover painting.  It's usually few lines or a quick paragraph - a bit of type that you can read quickly at a bustling newsstand meant have you throwing your change with a smile as you tuck that paperback into a pocket somewhere.

The teaser page at the beginning hints at the motor which makes the novel run, young Alan's anxieties about being considered a real man - by the town of Varoo, by his father, and even by his own self.