American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism to Main Street

Rabinowitz (Black & White & Noir: America’s Pulp Modernism) offers a thorough history of paperback books that explains how these humble objects revolutionized American reading habits in the 1940s and ’50s. Initially associated with the escapist category of “pulp,” paperbacks later attained respectability, with titles such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Brave New World, and John Hersey’s Hiroshima released in the format. Colorful, even fanciful cover designs attracted new readers, while low prices throughout the postwar years kept paperbacks accessible to a mass audience. The author thus proposes an alternative definition of pulp, as an inexpensive format rather than a lowbrow category. Isak Dinesen’s sophisticated work, for instance, ended up in the hands of thousands of American GIs during WWII via Armed Services Editions (ASEs). Based on this case and other fascinating examples, Rabinowitz asserts that “pulping is the process by which Americans became modern.” The book, accompanied by dozens of sensational book covers, goes on to expertly cover the free-speech trials of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ulysses and the postmodern afterlife of paperback books and pulp fiction. Rabinowitz’s work is a prime example of literary scholarship and essential key to the history of American publishing. 24 color photos, 42 halftones.[em] (Nov.) [/em]