Crack-Up

by March Hastings

What the book is not:

Crack-Up is not a candy sweet story of love and romance---it is not the pretty portrayal of tender emotions, indeed it is not a very nice story.

Crack-Up IS:

A powerful, tough, moving narration---the plight of a woman bound by marriage to an impotent man. It is the story of her frustration....A gnawing, aching, hellish torment that rends apart her very soul as it wracks her body.

With crisp soliloquy and biting dialogue, March Hastings brings her characters to life-like dimension, then weaves them through a plot that explodes with violence and intrigue.

191 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Writing in New York City in the 1950s and 60s, March Hastings, a pseudonym of Sally Singer, was one of the most prolific authors of the lesbian pulp era. She now lives in Florida.

Reviews

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sally Singer wrote several well-written vintage lesbian pulp novels under the pseudonym March Hastings which seem to be gaining some well-deserved traction since being recently reprinted by Cutting Edge Books. Here a neurotic, selfish, and sexually repressed young wife named Karen goes bananas after after her cranky husband Steve, a race car driver, is rendered bed-ridden and impotent after a crash. Not surprisingly some sexual exploits and experimentation ensue. Her relationship with Jean, whose snarky banter crackles with sarcasm and droll self-mockery, is the highlight of the book and I kind of wished that the novel were about Jean instead. The ending, dictated by the sexual climate of the times, was a bit of a clunker although the writing and dialog make this well worth reading. Four stars.

[Nik Maack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review sort of contains spoilers but not really because it's not exactly War and Peace, if you get my meaning. Are you reading this book for the plot? What is wrong with you?

How do you write a book about wanton sexuality when you're in a repressive culture? You make it about science.

Remember the weird ending of the movie Psycho? A guy in a white coat shows up and says, "Let me explain to you what just happened, and return the world back to a state of normalcy. You see, the human mind..."

Psycho can justify all that violence by pretending to make it about science. Crack Up justifies wanton sexuality in the same way. It's about psychology.

Karen's husband Steve is a race car driver. He has been in an accident, which has rendered him impotent. What exactly are his injuries? Does he have broken bones? Why is he bedridden and needing a nurse? Shut up. This book won't tell you that. He's bedridden and impotent and that's all you need to know.

So what happens to a woman when she has been married 3 months and her husband can no longer make love to her? She turns into a sex crazed slut, of course. (At one point she's so horny her husband can literally smell it.) Let's watch her have sex with everyone!

In modern times, his would be the entire plot of the novel. We would see Karen sleep her way across New York City. Only, this is the 1950s and you can't do that. So instead we get all kinds of odd plot twists, emotional upheavals, and lengthy conversations, interspersed with sex scenes.

Well, sort of sex scenes. Karen explodes into a million sparkling lights when she reaches the ultimate completion. (You can't say the word "orgasm". That would be too much.)

Karen sleeps with Bill, her husband's doctor. In an extremely bizarre scene, he later apologizes for this, while offering Karen advice on how to get better. (She's sick, you see.) Bill says he slept with Karen because he didn't realize she really does love her husband. Bill's character honestly makes no sense. He both takes advantage of Karen, but later reverts to being a doctor trying to help her, even recommending a psychoanalyst. How can this be?

Because the story and characters do not matter and it's about the sex.

Karen sleeps with Jean, her friend. Here's where things get weird. Okay, weirder. The book really enjoys describing the lesbian sex, of course. Later, it has to walk that back, describing lesbianism as maladaptive and psychologically wrong. Karen thinks to herself, as she confronts her own illness, that she will some day tell Jean she needs help, to get over being gay, so she can be normal.

This would be incredibly offensive, if it weren't obvious that the book is lying. Picture someone who is being held hostage, saying really weird things that their kidnapper wants them to say, while their eyes say something else the entire time. That's this book. Censors are making it say being a lesbian is a terrible, terrible thing. By the way, remember how we described the hot lesbian sex in the car? Wink!

In a very bizarre chapter, Karen is raped in the park. Why does this chapter exist? Nothing comes of it. The event has nothing to do with her wanton ways. She does not welcome the rape. Just a bit of horror in the middle of the book for absolutely no reason. Was this yet another aspect that had to be there for the censors? Did Karen have to be punished? I don't know.

Spoilers, I suppose, but by the end of the book Karen is back in the arms of her impotent husband. They're going to somehow make it work. All that sex that you enjoyed in this book was totally wrong and psychologically maladaptive and illness. Karen has had one session with a psychoanalyst, and she already sees how the seeds of childhood made her a pervert. Just forget about the sex and get married and have kids. The end.

Why did I like this book? Because of the demented gymnastics it goes through in order to exist at all. The writing is fun and weird. The flaws are its strengths. It's an odd piece of history and madness. Sex, oozing past the censors. Hilarious, insane, weird, impossible, wrong, right, and nonsensical. It's a very readable piece of mild filth.