Thu 28 Apr 2011
BRUNO FISCHER – House of Flesh. Gold Medal #123, paperback original, 1950. Reprinted several times.
Here’s a book whose main thesis is that the female of the species is a preying mantis, capable of devouring the male in the very act of sex; a she-dog in heat, contemptuously amused at the howls of the horde of disappointed hounds pawing furiously the door. (I grant you, some of you are not going to need to know anything more.)
Harry is a professional basketball player from New York, seeking a summer of recuperation in the outlying countryside. Lela is the wife of the local veterinarian. Rumor has it that he fed his first wife to the dogs, and thereby hangs the tale: a detective story — truly it is! — a rich, sultry one with the sort of down-to-earth appeal that made the early Gold Medal paperbacks so immediately and immensely profitable.
Images of a certain kind or a rustic America in a certain indefinite time in its past should spring to mind. These pictures of an age largely past may be entirely a matter of fiction, nothing more than a state of the imagination, and may have always been so, but their lush moodiness can be sharply cutting as well, with the moment of incision preserved in an instant forever.
The dogs provide an essential clue to the murder that Harry is eventually accused of, but you know as well I do what comes before then: “Undress me … but slowly … very slowly …”
House of Flesh was Fischer’s first for Gold Medal in their series of paperback originals that took the country by storm, and it was reprinted several times during the decade that followed.
Rating: B plus.
[UPDATE] 04-18-11. The closet in my upstairs study has a shelf where I keep my Gold Medal paperbacks from this era, about a thousand of them. It’s time I started to read them again. I don’t remember any of the specifics of this one, but what I had to say back then about House of Flesh certainly triggers off a huge carload of memories.
April 29th, 2011 at 8:57 am
I like a lot of the Gold Medal books, but this one sounds like one for me to skip. Not surprisingly, they can’t all be good… or at least to my taste, eh?
April 29th, 2011 at 9:30 am
Richard
That’s usually what “good” means to anyone — whether they enjoyed it or not, or if they’re likely to. If I remembered more about the book itself, rather than only this old review — only the overall feeling and story line — I might try to change your mind. But I don’t, and I won’t.
What the review did for me, though, was remind me how much I enjoyed Gold Medal paperbacks when I was growing up in a small town in northern Michigan. Gave me a whole lot wider perspective on life, they did.
— Steve
April 29th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Steve, as for your update. Does that mean you can get upstairs again or that there is just one more thing to taunt you from above?
April 29th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Fischer really drives home the canine angle. Just as a male dog doesn’t care what a bitch in heat looks like, Harry is attracted to Lela despite her appearance. He pointedly mentions that her clothes are drab, she wears no make-up, and has no obvious female wiles. Nevertheless, because the two of them are basically animals, Harry finds Lela irresistible. Fischer seems to have had a wryly amusing take on human sexuality.
The cover is pretty good, too, both striking and a bit hammy.
Steve, as an urbanite who’s had to deal with media overload for most of my life. I can only imagine the thrill and pleasure a small town 50’s boy such as yourself would find in Gold Medal novels. No doubt they did teach you an interesting thing or two about life.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:54 am
Dozy in his last paragraph mentions how Gold Medal novels might teach an interesting thing or two about life.
With me, at age 12 in Trenton, NJ, it was the Signet paperbacks by Erskine Caldwell with the sexy James Avati covers. They don’t make cover art like that anymore!
April 29th, 2011 at 11:25 am
Michael
My hip is better enough that I’ve gotten up the stairs a couple of times this past week, but only long enough to download all of the accumulated email without daring to even begin tackling it — but soon!
It will also be a while before I can start clearing a path to the closet where the Gold Medal’s are. Right now it’s enough to know that that’s where they are.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:28 am
I don’t know if anyone other than myself noticed, but in the review I referred to a “preying mantis,” which of course is an incorrect spelling.
I also don’t know if the way I spelled it was deliberate or not. If if was a fortunate typo, as it might have been, I decided last night to keep it, the way it was.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:36 am
Dozy
The additional imagery you provided is both very much appreciated — and effective, I’d have to say. Thanks!
I should be able to add a cover scan later on today. One more trip to the chiropractor this afternoon should have me back to normal, or 99% so.
I saw my regular doctor for the first time yesterday to tell her what happened. Her first reaction: “You had your wallet back there, didn’t you?”
April 29th, 2011 at 11:41 am
Walker
I wasn’t reading Gold Medal’s when I was 12, but it was soon after, starting (I’m almost sure) with Richard Prather and the Shell Scott books. STRIP FOR MURDER, his adventures in a nudist colony, was a real eye-opener.
Other than GOD’S LITTLE ACRE, I don’t remember reading Erskine Caldwell, but that one was a good one.
— Steve
April 29th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Steve:
Glad to hear you are up and around and improving as time goes by, Incidentally, I have about a thousand Gold Medals, all in pristine condition. Never read anyone of them to spoil their condition. I guess that’s what a collector does.
Victor
April 29th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Steve:
I hope today’s visit to the chiropractor went well for you.
Victor:
I know the feeling. My copy of HOUSE OF FLESH is a battered first printing. If it had been in pristine condition, I might not have even opened it up.
April 30th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Dozy
I’ve just added a cover scan to the review. I’m sure that this is the same first printing that you have and that you referred to in Comment #4.
My own collection of Gold Medal paperbacks ranges from Good to Fine condition, but mostly toward the lower end of the scale. It should make me less afraid to read them, but they’re also getting fragile, and if I’m not careful, all of the pages start to fall out.