When Trashy Was a Compliment
There was a time when book covers had no dignity.
Those were glorious days.
Books came wrapped in gold foil, embossed lettering, and jewel-toned colors. Their rotating cast of motifs included champagne, mansions, diamonds, enormous sunglasses, scraps of lace, caviar and toast (not kidding, see below), and mysterious keys that opened … rooms? ….cars?… handcuffs? Who knew?
Sometimes the message was even less subtle. One edition of Jilly Cooper’s Riders features two people in white riding pants, one hand reaching toward a rear end while another brandishes a riding crop across it. Above this tableau, JILLY COOPER appears in enormous gold letters.
This cover did not come to play
These books were amazing. Are amazing. And I miss them. Consider the mass-market editions of Riders, V.C. Andrews’s Flowers in the Attic, Shirley Conran’s Lace, or Jackie Collins’s Hollywood Wives. No need to read the copy on the back. It was all up front: money, s-e-x, betrayal, a phoenix-like rise from the ashes, etc.
Then there were the stepbacks: a second illustrated cover hidden behind the first. Take Flowers in the Attic. The outer cover gives us a terrified blond girl peering through the shutters of an extremely rudimentary attic. Open it, and there are all four Dollanganger children, huddled together beneath an enormous ghostly man who appears to be controlling them with his mind. Did you even need to read the back copy?
Is that Grandma Foxworth or Grandpa Foxworth? Someone help me!
Today’s covers are generally more subtle. Some would say tasteful. Romance gets flat, brightly colored illustrations. Domestic suspense gets a house, a staircase, or a woman seen from behind. Literary fiction gets an important object surrounded by empty space. Everything is designed to remain legible as a thumbnail on Amazon. In contrast, older covers were competing for your attention on a shelf.
I thought it was the dark haired one! Classic red herring.
The covers promised excess, the books delivered. I re-read them all the time: shameless heroines, star-crossed lovers, impossible odds, triumph, tragedy, and rebirth.
I was enthralled.
These books grabbed you by the wrist and made a promise:
Something horrible happened in this mansion.
This girl Lucky got up to some serious sh*t.
She knows which one of those bitches is her mother.
You are not going to believe what these terrible rich people do next.
What gloriously trashy book cover could you recognize from across a drugstore? Email me or comment below.