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The Sucker
Slade had his women figured from every angle --- except one! Girls of every size, shape and style, these were Slade Harper's stock in trade. Like Cleo, still a child, whose bed and body he had won in a crap game. And glamorous Ruth Talley, with whom he conspired by day and perspired by night. Ann Marie, of the crippled thighs, twisted Doris Barker, the pseudo-Lesbian, and lovely Beth, the professional, whose money went into Slade's pocket. Each victimized by Slade because what a woman had once done to him. He treated them as flesh to be enjoyed, eaten, exploited. He used and abused them for a pack of fools. Yet freakish fate, and his own desires, at last gave them a chance to teach him that the real sucker was Slade Harper.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
3 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Orrie Hitt
221 books30 followersOrrie Edwin Hitt was born in Colchester and died from cancer in a VA hospital in Montrose, NY. He married Charlotte Tucker in Pt Jervis, NY (a small town upstate where he became a lifelong resident), on Valentine’s Day, '43. Orrie & Charlotte had 4 kids—Joyce, Margaret, David & Nancy. He was under 5’5″, taking a 27' inseam, which his wife altered because no one sold pants so short.
Hitt wrote maybe 150 books. He wasn’t sure. “I’m no adding machine”, he answered on the back cover of his book Naked Flesh, when asked how many he’d written. “All I do is write. I usually start at 7 in the morning, take 20 minutes for lunch & continue until about 4 in the afternoon.” Hitt wrote a novel every 2 weeks in his prime, typing over 85 wpm. “His fastest & best works were produced when he was allowed to type whatever he wanted,” said his children. “His slowest works were produced when publishers insisted on a certain kind of novel, extra spicy etc.”
Most of Hitt’s books were PBOs. He also wrote some hardcovers. Pseudonyms include Kay Addams, Joe Black, Roger Normandie, Charles Verne & Nicky Weaver. Publishers include Avon, Beacon (later Softcover Library), Chariot, Domino (Lancer), Ember Library, Gaslight, Key Publishing, Kozy, MacFadden, Midwood, Novel, P.E.C, Red Lantern, Sabre, Uni-books, Valentine Books, Vantage Press, Vest-Pocket & Wisdom House.
He wrote in the adults only genre. Many of such writers were hacks, using thin plots as an excuse to throw tits & ass between covers for a quick buck. Others used the genre as a stepping stone to legitimate writing, later dismissing this part of their career. There were few like Hitt, whose writing left an original, idiosyncratic & lasting mark even beyond the horizons of '50s-mid 60s adult publishing. What made him unique was his belief he was writing realistically about the needs & desires, the brutality (both verbal & physical), the hypocritical lives inside the suburban tracts houses & the limited economic opportunities for women that lay beneath the glossy, Super Cinecolor, Father Knows Best surface of American life. He studied what he wrote about. Wanting to write about a nudist camp, he went to one tho “he wouldn't disrobe”.
His research allowed him to write convincingly. S. Stryker, in her Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback, says, “Only one actual lesbian, Kay Addams, writing as Orrie Hitt, is known to have churned out semipornographic sleaze novels for a predominantly male audience.” She thought “Orrie Hitt” a pseudonym, & “Kay Addams” a real lesbian author! Orrie’d like that one.
It wasn’t just about sex. It was also about guts. “The characters,” Hitt’s protagonist–a movie producer complimenting a screenwriter on her work–says in the novel Man-Hungry Female, “were very real, red blooded people who tore at the guts of life. That’s what I’m after. Guts.” If anyone knew about guts, it was him.
Life started out tough for Hitt. His father committed suicide when he was 11. “Dad seldom spoke of his father, who'd committed suicide, because it was a very unpleasant chapter in his life,” said his children.
After Father’s death, Orrie & his mother moved to Forestburgh, NY, where they worked for a hunting-fishing club. He started doing chores for wealthy members for $.10 hourly. Management offered him a better job later, at .25 hourly. Eventually, he became club caretaker & supervisor. “Dad talked a lot about working as a child to help his mother make ends meet,” his children recalled. “He wanted his children to have a better life while growing up.”
Tragedy struck Hitt again during those years. His children explain: “Dad’s mom died at her sister’s house on the club property during an ice storm, so Dad walked to the house to get his mother & carried her back to his car"
Hitt wrote maybe 150 books. He wasn’t sure. “I’m no adding machine”, he answered on the back cover of his book Naked Flesh, when asked how many he’d written. “All I do is write. I usually start at 7 in the morning, take 20 minutes for lunch & continue until about 4 in the afternoon.” Hitt wrote a novel every 2 weeks in his prime, typing over 85 wpm. “His fastest & best works were produced when he was allowed to type whatever he wanted,” said his children. “His slowest works were produced when publishers insisted on a certain kind of novel, extra spicy etc.”
Most of Hitt’s books were PBOs. He also wrote some hardcovers. Pseudonyms include Kay Addams, Joe Black, Roger Normandie, Charles Verne & Nicky Weaver. Publishers include Avon, Beacon (later Softcover Library), Chariot, Domino (Lancer), Ember Library, Gaslight, Key Publishing, Kozy, MacFadden, Midwood, Novel, P.E.C, Red Lantern, Sabre, Uni-books, Valentine Books, Vantage Press, Vest-Pocket & Wisdom House.
He wrote in the adults only genre. Many of such writers were hacks, using thin plots as an excuse to throw tits & ass between covers for a quick buck. Others used the genre as a stepping stone to legitimate writing, later dismissing this part of their career. There were few like Hitt, whose writing left an original, idiosyncratic & lasting mark even beyond the horizons of '50s-mid 60s adult publishing. What made him unique was his belief he was writing realistically about the needs & desires, the brutality (both verbal & physical), the hypocritical lives inside the suburban tracts houses & the limited economic opportunities for women that lay beneath the glossy, Super Cinecolor, Father Knows Best surface of American life. He studied what he wrote about. Wanting to write about a nudist camp, he went to one tho “he wouldn't disrobe”.
His research allowed him to write convincingly. S. Stryker, in her Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback, says, “Only one actual lesbian, Kay Addams, writing as Orrie Hitt, is known to have churned out semipornographic sleaze novels for a predominantly male audience.” She thought “Orrie Hitt” a pseudonym, & “Kay Addams” a real lesbian author! Orrie’d like that one.
It wasn’t just about sex. It was also about guts. “The characters,” Hitt’s protagonist–a movie producer complimenting a screenwriter on her work–says in the novel Man-Hungry Female, “were very real, red blooded people who tore at the guts of life. That’s what I’m after. Guts.” If anyone knew about guts, it was him.
Life started out tough for Hitt. His father committed suicide when he was 11. “Dad seldom spoke of his father, who'd committed suicide, because it was a very unpleasant chapter in his life,” said his children.
After Father’s death, Orrie & his mother moved to Forestburgh, NY, where they worked for a hunting-fishing club. He started doing chores for wealthy members for $.10 hourly. Management offered him a better job later, at .25 hourly. Eventually, he became club caretaker & supervisor. “Dad talked a lot about working as a child to help his mother make ends meet,” his children recalled. “He wanted his children to have a better life while growing up.”
Tragedy struck Hitt again during those years. His children explain: “Dad’s mom died at her sister’s house on the club property during an ice storm, so Dad walked to the house to get his mother & carried her back to his car"
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 25, 2022
After his b***h of a wife runs away with his business partner Slade is trying to play the angles and has become a cynical, ruthless, womanizing bastard, and he knows it. He's learned now that renting is the thing, the shorter term the better. Owning is for suckers, and he'll never never be one again. Yeah, right.
"I thought about her, how it had twisted her, the way fate twists a lot of people. Sometimes it’s a little thing, like a train that you miss, or it may be a big thing, like your father getting killed — or your wife going off with another man — and it wraps around you, or cuts into you the way glass cuts, sinking out of sight, becoming a part of you. You hear people say that you’re bitter. You think you’ve just grown smarter. Who can say?"
Some may call this a sleaze fest (though hardly lurid by today's standards). And it is, along with everything Hitt wrote. But damn, he knew how to make his bastards and seductresses leap off the page. You feel Slade's seething drive to screw (financially and physically) the women that cross his path, the drool that collects in his mouth with every sordid leer. From the title I was pretty sure from the outset that things weren't going to come up roses for old Slade, but it was still immensely satisfying to see him get his.
"I thought about her, how it had twisted her, the way fate twists a lot of people. Sometimes it’s a little thing, like a train that you miss, or it may be a big thing, like your father getting killed — or your wife going off with another man — and it wraps around you, or cuts into you the way glass cuts, sinking out of sight, becoming a part of you. You hear people say that you’re bitter. You think you’ve just grown smarter. Who can say?"
Some may call this a sleaze fest (though hardly lurid by today's standards). And it is, along with everything Hitt wrote. But damn, he knew how to make his bastards and seductresses leap off the page. You feel Slade's seething drive to screw (financially and physically) the women that cross his path, the drool that collects in his mouth with every sordid leer. From the title I was pretty sure from the outset that things weren't going to come up roses for old Slade, but it was still immensely satisfying to see him get his.
October 13, 2020
Slade Harper won a run-down gas station in a crap game. He was a sucker to accept the place instead of cash. Before that, Slade's wife and business partner played him for a sucker when they cleaned out the firm's bank account and ran off together. These body blows turned Slade into a cynical, ruthless, lowdown bastard.
Now Slade needs money and he thinks Rockland Motors and it's sultry owner Ruth are easy marks. But as scripture says,
Now Slade needs money and he thinks Rockland Motors and it's sultry owner Ruth are easy marks. But as scripture says,
"Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you pull off a con who are accustomed to being a sucker" (New International Version, Hitt 13:23).
August 30, 2020
The title gives the end result away just as the voice over at the start of a film noir does. Slade Harper won a gas station in a card game and has been running it for a couple of weeks when a red convertible drives up. Midge Dalton is driving, but Slade isn't interested in him. He has eyes only for the passenger, Ruth Talley. So when Midge offers Slade a job at his mail order auto parts business, Slade knows he is ditching the gas station and chasing after Ruth. And thus begins a classic noir tale where Slade seemingly has the upper hand but of course he is "the sucker" and we know that Ruth is outsmarting him the whole way. Plenty of plot permutations to keep this one interesting, even if the end result is never in doubt. Slade is the first person narrator and he is under no illusions about what a bastard he is, but Hitt does a good job of giving him the blind spot that leads to his downfall, one that we readers can see coming. That provides a nice edge to the narration because we know something Slade doesn't even though he is telling the story.
February 19, 2025
Chump-Out!
Third time I read this.
Hah! The Chumpanzee doesn't even end up with a handicapped sticker for all his chump-out. Because they didn't even have such a thing in them there days.
Chump-Out! (2)
Orrie can't go two pages without mentioning tits. You just know he's a "repressed" homo I wonder what his wife and kids and bartender made of that.
You know, if you like tits, you must be a homo. Also, if you hate anchovies, you must be an anchovy. Also, everybody famous and important was secretly a homo.
Third time I read this.
Hah! The Chumpanzee doesn't even end up with a handicapped sticker for all his chump-out. Because they didn't even have such a thing in them there days.
Chump-Out! (2)
Orrie can't go two pages without mentioning tits. You just know he's a "repressed" homo I wonder what his wife and kids and bartender made of that.
You know, if you like tits, you must be a homo. Also, if you hate anchovies, you must be an anchovy. Also, everybody famous and important was secretly a homo.
April 30, 2015
An okay read from the days of the vintage paperback. Hitt wrote hundreds of books of this type.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews