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Paperback 153: Dell 7733 (1st ptg, 1962)
Title: Seed of Doubt
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: Clark Hulings
Best things about this cover:
- "Explosive," "Seed," and a variation of "semen" all on one cover!? That's ... ballsy. Also makes me a little queasy. Oh god, all this seed-talk is making even "Unexpurgated" look pornographic.
- "You expect that man to take care of that baby!?"
- "You expect us to believe that that man is responsible for that stain!?"
- The judge looks like he wants to say "Excuse me, sir, but the fencing class is down the hall."
- "The pattern of ANATOMY OF A MURDER" - HA ha. High praise. That's like saying "As many pages as THE GREAT GATSBY" or "Set in the same general region as GONE WITH THE WIND"
Best things about this back cover:
- Cast of characters! With quotes!?
- "I'd rather see her dead" - I hope he's not supposed to be sympathetic character. "No wife of mine..." - how many does he have?
- "I loved Eric so much ..." - of course. Women love men who would rather see them dead than see them bear the child of another man.
- "Who is to say that I was wrong ...?" - nice defense, Perry Mason. I believe This Court is to say, you jackass.
Page 123~
Jenny emerged from the restaurant wearing a tight black skirt and a green blouse under a thin white sweater that accentuated her heavy breasts. She pretended to be surprised to see him.
"You still here?"
Eric continued to pick his teeth. "It would seem. You live far?"
Eric is suave - he knows what all real men know: that there is no surer way to seduce a heavy-breasted lady than to pick your teeth.
~RP
4 comments:
If you want to read REAL stories of sperm banks then every other chapter in this book "The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank" makes you feel yucky. The other chapters are about the offspring and are bittersweet.
After all, what is a sperm bank other than a four room office where one room has a good ventilation fan, porn and small cups, a walk-in freezer, a waiting room and a palatial office for the dingbat that runs the operation.
there is no surer way to seduce a heavy-breasted lady than to pick your teeth.
Ah. So that's what I've been doing wrong.
the cover blurb is from LJ, so maybe "Shelve this in Fiction just like ANATOMY OF A MURDER."
It certainly is a horrible cover, but I'm actually intrigued by the idea. Artificial reproductive technologies have become almost commonplace; it might be interesting to read this novel from an era when artificial insemination (in humans that is, they were doing it to cows for much longer) was regarded as nearly adultery and in vitro fertilization was science fiction.
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