69 Babylon Park

by Harry Whittington

144 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

He also wrote under the names Ashley Carter, Harriet Kathryn Myers, and Blaine Stevens, Curt Colman, John Dexter, Tabor Evans, Whit Harrison, Kel Holland, Suzanne Stephens, Clay Stuart, Hondo Wells, Harry White, Hallam Whitney, Henri Whittier, J.X. Williams.

Harry Whittington (February 4, 1915–June 11, 1989) was an American mystery novelist and one of the original founders of the paperback novel. Born in Ocala, Florida, he worked in government jobs before becoming a writer.

His reputation as a prolific writer of pulp fiction novels is supported by his writing of 85 novels in a span of twelve years (as many as seven in a single month) mostly in the crime, suspense, and noir fiction genres. In total, he published over 200 novels. Seven of his writings were produced for the screen, including the television series Lawman. His reputation for being known as 'The King of the Pulps' is shared with author H. Bedford-Jones. Only a handful of Whittington's novels are in print today.
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Reviews

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1962 Whittington novel is not as sleazy as the front and back covers suggest. Instead it is psychological realism set in married student housing at a trailer park and it reminded me quite a bit of Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road which had been published a year earlier. The beginning also has a bit of a David Goodis vibe as it reminds me of the beginning of The Wounded and the Slain. There's also a passage where protagonist Phil overhears students talking about his car-hop wife May that made me think of Raymond Carver's story "They're Not Your Husband" from Will You Please Be Quiet, Please. In that story a husband overhears guys in a diner making unflatteringly comments about his waitress wife. And in the same vein as those other works, 69 Babylon Park is a literary styled novel about a marriage disintegrating under the weight of expectations. The dialog got a bit long in places but there are some really choice scenes of confrontation and humiliation. If it hadn't been marketed as pulp I could see this Whittington rubbing elbows with the books by Yates and Carver.

[Sloweducation · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not peak Whittington by any means, this well-crafted romance is about Phil Wales, a man on the verge of graduating from law school in wedlock to a women who no longer excites him, caught between the respectable world and the working world. Of course, his wife is the earthy one and her opposite is the respectable one. Phil has to face off against a self-righteous bible thumper who barges in on him in the very first moments of committing adultery and a drunken hick from his wife's past who's trying to win her back. The blurb and back cover exaggerate the degree to which adultery is a focus. Really, the book is first about Phil's self-doubt and second about his troubled marriage. As usual with Whittington, though the plotting and characters may be on the formulaic side, the plot is not padded and the characters have believable moral and emotional dilemmas. My acquaintance with romance is as of yet mostly through Whittington and a few execrable digests, and as it goes this is the best I have yet read. I was hardly moved but never bored. The prose does not have any special elegance, but it is always a story well told. If I seem to damn with faint praise, let it be known that this is not my intent, for though 69 Babylon Park does not, say, merit a reprint, it stands head and shoulders above many other Whittington romances and is altogether a good book.

[J. Fakename · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice.