Items

• S-M : the last taboo
  The appearance of this book is reminiscent of a 1950s pulp novel, with its paperback cover and cheap, browning paper. It was published by Grove Press, a predominantly literary publisher of writers including John Rechy and Michael Rumaker, under their Evergreen Black Cat Book imprint. The authors are, presumably, a married couple, although there is very little information about them. It is also unclear whether the couple were involved in sadomasochism (which they prefer to term “s-m”) or distant researchers of it. At one point, in a section on purchasing s-m materials, they use the word “we”. The book aims to describe the “psychology, techniques, and accessories” of s-m. The final section, ‘From the Fields of Infamy’, presents literary examples of s-m, including by Charles Baudelaire and Pauline Réage.
• The vampires
  This novel is the second by Mexican-American author John Rechy (1931-) to be seized during the ‘Operation Tiger’ raids. The vampires of the title are metaphorical, as a disparate group of people gather on a Caribbean island and unleash their darkest desires via Satanic rituals and witchcraft. The novel is filmic in style and has a character list which includes actresses, priests (Voodoo and Catholic), a “madam”, a possibly murderous male sex worker and “a drug goddess”. In one of their catalogues, Philadelphia gay bookstore Giovanni’s Room described this novel as a departure for Rechy, particularly as it was “non-gay”, although ‘Gay Times’ noted it still had enough in the contents to be interesting to gay readers.