Too Hot to Handle

by Orrie Hitt

Mrs. Gordon's Girls: "If you wanted pleasure, Kay would give you a fling! Starkly reveals the Tempestuous life of a wanton Woman!".

155 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Orrie 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"

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read an Orrie Hitt book that was not an absolute masterpiece and this book is no exception. It is classic fifties sleaze pulp at its best. Another Orrie Hitt dime store novel sleaze pulp
masterpiece. His books were all capped with racy, lurid, tawdry covers. this book appropriately provided a titillating cover.

In Hitt's world, the men are all con artists, grifters, shady characters that could charm the skirts off any woman. The women in his books are lushes and tramps. And the men typically are juggling three
women.

This book in particular involves a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks and the sleazy desperate choices she makes in a dark morally empty world. Kay Marshall was from Orchard Street, the
slums. It wasn't Kay's fault she was easy. "On Orchard Street no girl could be innocent for long." Her father was a drunk and she had never seen him stay sober for an entire day. Kay hated the slums and couldnt wait to get out.

[Victor Whitman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Orrie Hitt's darker novels. I continue to be impressed with his simple, eloquent prose style. He doesn't overwrite or flinch, seems fearless, a very underrated writer - and he wrote most of his novels in Port Jervis, which makes him dear to my heart.

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic pulp sleaze. The only problem that I had with this is that the ending is so abrupt and so different in tone from the rest of the novel that it felt like it was written by someone else.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another noir-ish plot with a vice angle, in this case prostitution circa late 1950s. A bit unique because it is narrated from the female protagonist's point of view. She drifts into prostitution because her husband isn’t making enough money and he is a “little man” and she is a nymphomaniac and anyway why not make money doing what she most enjoys? Ahem. Okay, if you can get passed that kind of character motivation - it is a pulp novel after all - it’s a decent tale of the ascent into crime and the inevitable fall.

[Kipp Poe · Rating 4 out of 5]

She is moving on up but boy how fast they fall, a young and beautiful lady moves from the bad part of town to be a wife to a lawyer but her past and lust takes a hold of her and the world crashes in around her.

A quick entertaining read from the pulp archives so glad these are now available on Kindle