Review: Crack-Up

Crack-Up by March Hastings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sally Singer published 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.

Available from Cutting Edge Books. I read it in the Vintage Sleaze collection.