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I'll Call Every Monday
A lurid detective tale involving a knock-out, drop-dead gorgeous blonde.
- GenresPulp Noir
Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
6 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Orrie Hitt
221 books31 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 4, 2019
Well plotted and perfectly paced, this is a very entertaining and enjoyable novel. Some old insurance slang threw me at first. Debits seem to be the the money that the insurance agent collects from the policy holders - in person, no less. This book is a fine example of the best of the 1950s paperback originals from that era. Recommended.
July 15, 2017
The title of “I’ll Call Every Monday” refers to the day of the week that insurance agents go around to collect the premiums and the day of the week that Irene Schoefield asked insurance agent Nicky Weaver to come over and collect from her, the day of the week that her husband went to New York City and left her all alone in that big house on the hill. Irene, of course, had “a set of hips that drove the temperature in the room up to about a hundred and twenty.” “I’ll Call Every Monday” is Orrie Hitt’s take on James Cain’s “Double Indemnity.” Why do we need to read a remake of that classic? Well, for one thing, this book is not a remake of “Double Indemnity” and, for the most part, has little to do with that earlier novel. In fact, for much of the book, the reader keeps waiting for the whole “Double Indemnity” theme to play out to its logical conclusion, but there are so many other things going on here. And, don’t assume you know how its all going to play out.
This is the first novel Hitt ever published and it is the first of two novels he wrote starring Nicky Weaver, the second being “Ladies’ Man.” Here, Weaver is a bit of a sleazeball, getting it on with a married woman, corrupting a young woman and breaking her heart, falsifying insurance policies, borrowing from collections. But, he is still a bit of a chump, still wants to do the right thing and still is moral enough that, when he sees that Irene’s husband has been selling photograph sets of her in her birthday suit at local bars, he hauls off and slugs the bastard.
Hitt specialized in writing about the working class and, here, the insurance agent Weaver, although a white collar salesman, is just another chump trying to make a living, bitching about all the stupid people he deals with and all the people who should be paying up their premiums, but always find excuses not to. Most of them are dopes, he explains, cause they think they are being cute, but they don’t know from nothing. Weaver, at one point, explains that, to sell insurance all you have to do is talk fast, so fast that the client has not way to keep up with you. In some ways, he is not a bad guy and, in fact, when another agent is up to his eyeballs in debt because he’s been taking care of his mistress instead of paying his bills, Weaver lends him money to get it together.
In typical Hitt fashion, the story is sleazy rather than noirish, but its good and it’s a fast read. There are some hilarious lines here that Hitt just slips in such as when Weaver rescues three suits from the cleaners. “They looked like they had been finished off with a carpet beater and a mop.”
This is the first novel Hitt ever published and it is the first of two novels he wrote starring Nicky Weaver, the second being “Ladies’ Man.” Here, Weaver is a bit of a sleazeball, getting it on with a married woman, corrupting a young woman and breaking her heart, falsifying insurance policies, borrowing from collections. But, he is still a bit of a chump, still wants to do the right thing and still is moral enough that, when he sees that Irene’s husband has been selling photograph sets of her in her birthday suit at local bars, he hauls off and slugs the bastard.
Hitt specialized in writing about the working class and, here, the insurance agent Weaver, although a white collar salesman, is just another chump trying to make a living, bitching about all the stupid people he deals with and all the people who should be paying up their premiums, but always find excuses not to. Most of them are dopes, he explains, cause they think they are being cute, but they don’t know from nothing. Weaver, at one point, explains that, to sell insurance all you have to do is talk fast, so fast that the client has not way to keep up with you. In some ways, he is not a bad guy and, in fact, when another agent is up to his eyeballs in debt because he’s been taking care of his mistress instead of paying his bills, Weaver lends him money to get it together.
In typical Hitt fashion, the story is sleazy rather than noirish, but its good and it’s a fast read. There are some hilarious lines here that Hitt just slips in such as when Weaver rescues three suits from the cleaners. “They looked like they had been finished off with a carpet beater and a mop.”
April 26, 2021
“She had the insurance policy in one hand, her bra and panties in the other.” Ah yes, game on! This is another of Hitt’s noir classics that deserves to be rescued from dusty garage sale boxes, and thanks to inexpensive ebooks, it just might survive. The engaging voice of the first-person narrator keeps this one entertaining even as you hear echoes of James M. Cain's Double Indemnity with the theme of an insurance agent and a femme fatale out to collect on a fraudulent insurance policy. That’s really the only similarity, however, with Cain’s book as Hitt layers in a completely different plot embellished with parallel tracking sub-plots. Enjoyed this one a lot. As is often the case with Hitt's books, reading them now is like entering a time capsule. Here we have the circa 1960 insurance milieu: Insurance agents going door-to-door to collect weekly premium payments. Wow, what a different world we live in now!
October 10, 2020
What a dope. Nicky is apparently the only life-insurance salesman who never read or watched Double Indemnity.
March 18, 2023
Orrie Hitt (1916-1975) wrote 150 novels that fell generally into the crime noir and erotica genres. Virtually all of his books had sexual content that was edgy for the time, but seems mild today. As you would expect, many of his 150 novels were lousy. It's the ones that were great that make him a hero to many vintage paperback fans, and that make his books so expensive on eBay.
"I'll Call Every Monday" was his first novel (1953) and is a good one. It's about an insurance salesman who falls for a gorgeous married woman who is suffering abuse at the hands of her husband. The two concoct a plot to get rid of the husband and defraud the insurance company so that they can live happily ever after. Naturally, there are things the protagonist doesn't know about the gorgeous married woman. Important things. REALLY important things. But he will find out along with the reader, which makes for a fun and surprising ending.
I lopped off a star because the insurance passages felt long and tedious. I'm reminded of Elmore Leonard's famous quote about writing: "Try to leave out the parts people skip."
I lopped off a second star because the protagonist is just too obsessed with sex for my taste. He thinks about it every waking moment, and since he is the book's narrator, he talks about it constantly, page after page of observations about female body parts. Again, it was 1953 so there's nothing explicit. I just felt it became tiresome.
That said, I enjoyed the story and the ending.
"I'll Call Every Monday" was his first novel (1953) and is a good one. It's about an insurance salesman who falls for a gorgeous married woman who is suffering abuse at the hands of her husband. The two concoct a plot to get rid of the husband and defraud the insurance company so that they can live happily ever after. Naturally, there are things the protagonist doesn't know about the gorgeous married woman. Important things. REALLY important things. But he will find out along with the reader, which makes for a fun and surprising ending.
I lopped off a star because the insurance passages felt long and tedious. I'm reminded of Elmore Leonard's famous quote about writing: "Try to leave out the parts people skip."
I lopped off a second star because the protagonist is just too obsessed with sex for my taste. He thinks about it every waking moment, and since he is the book's narrator, he talks about it constantly, page after page of observations about female body parts. Again, it was 1953 so there's nothing explicit. I just felt it became tiresome.
That said, I enjoyed the story and the ending.
October 25, 2018
Orrie Hitt's first book. A variation on the Double Indemnity plot. Not a bad first novel, which could be said of all his novels—were they first novels—since the problems with this novel, lack of originality, improbability, etc. plagued him throughout his career. I could forgive all that, if they just moved a little faster.
January 24, 2012
I enjoyed this as a thoroughly fun read. While the premise may be familiar to those who've seen Double Indemnity, this book takes that idea and goes a different way with it, with different character types - including a womanizing anti-hero who is having sex with two women while flirting with a third.
This tale has a sequel
but now I'm not sure I want to read it since
1) I liked this ending, and
2) the sequel is in 3rd person and part of what makes this book is the fact that we're inside our anti-hero's brain (1st person). He's like-able *because* we know what he's thinking. Even when he's acting like a jerk and a heel, we know how he really feels inside and what his motivation is.
This tale has a sequel
but now I'm not sure I want to read it since 1) I liked this ending, and
2) the sequel is in 3rd person and part of what makes this book is the fact that we're inside our anti-hero's brain (1st person). He's like-able *because* we know what he's thinking. Even when he's acting like a jerk and a heel, we know how he really feels inside and what his motivation is.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews