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Reefer Whore

A fairly accurate account of when Hack’s reefer habit was at its worst and he became a gigolo to pay for it. When he started, he envisioned himself being put up by gorgeous millionairesses but his only clients turned out to be middle-class men who were desperate to hide their homosexuality from their wives. The novel became Hack’s biggest seller after Oprah included it in her monthly book club although since his publisher John Kane still owned the profits from the contract Hack originally signed with him, he didn’t see a penny. Ironically, he made more money as a gay hooker.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Hack originally wrote this in 1958 as a conventional horror tale titled “The Mummy’s Curse” but when his cover artist Jonny M. told him of his affection for Bangles’ lead singer Susanna Hoffs, he rewrote it with Hoffs and Jonny as the lead characters (since Jonny always depicted himself in the role anyway). When Jonny posted his cover art on his Instagram account, he said said “it resulted in one of the highlights of my miserable life”:

Gamblers of Love


Back in the late 1960s, Hack and some friends of his would sometimes play a game of brackets to decide who was the sexiest celebrity. They ultimately gave it up because every time they played, the winner was Natalie Wood. When Ms. Wood tragically drowned in 1981, Hack had one of his many nervous breakdown and if he death is mentioned to him now, he becomes violent and insists that she is still alive and looks exactly as she did in “The Great Race.” When he does book signings, fans are required to sign a disclosure promising that they won’t bring her up in his presence.

Jonny’s Run

Actress Jenny Agutter fell onto Hack’s radar after he watched a single scene from the sci-fi “Logan’s Run.”

It seems that Logan (played by Michael York) and his scantily-clad girlfriend Jessica (Ms. Agutter) have been on their eponymous run for a while when they inexplicably happen across some animal furs in an icey cave. Jessica suggests they put them on but Logan, being a red-blooded dude, insists that they take their wet clothes off first “before they freeze on us.” Because this is a movie, that means that Logan just has to take off his shirt while Jessica removes every stitch before wrapping herself in the Wookie skin (or whatever kind of animal they have in the world of the movie). Her nudity was totally exploitative and, from Hack’s twisted perspective, totally mind-blowing. He immediately ran out of the theater and wrote this novelization, which is nothing more than an extended sexual fantasy where a Hack Werker-like character leaps into the scene and performs unspeakable perversions with Ms. Agutter.

Although not a success in its first printing, it sells well today at science fiction conventions.

The Perfect Sleeper

Every year, Hack’s cover artist Jonny M. writes an elaborate Christmas story and has a contest during its creation where his friends suggest a celebrity and the one he likes the most gets included in an illustration along with the person who suggested him or her. Every year, Jonny’s buddy Glenn submitted 1970s sex starlet Joey Heatherton and Jonny finally made him the winner. But in the illustration, Glenn was depicted with the then-current 70 year-old version of Joey and not the one he pined for in his boyhood.

Hack thought that was an outrageous injustice and wrote this book in protest. The title comes from a series of suggestive commercials she made for the Serta Perfect Sleeper mattress.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Joey Heatherton, here’s a commercial she made for the Perfect Sleeper in her heyday:

Desperado

Hack wrote this volume about Linda Ronstadt, whose poster adorned the interior of the van he lives in throughout the 1970’s. Her version of “Desperado” is one of his all-time favorite recordings, and he wrote this novel after once again drunkenly listening to it and dissolving into tears because she didn’t share the obsessive love that he had for her. Hack was interviewed for the 2019 documentary “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of Her Voice” but the footage was unusable when he broke into hysterics and attempted to jump out of a window.

The Affairs of Mrs. Miniver

The first movie Hack saw in a theater was “Adventure,” superstar Clark Gable’s comeback after World War II that was advertised with the famous slogan “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him.” The Garson referred to was British actress Greer Garson, who made her American film debut in “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and won her the first of four consecutive Academy Award nominations, culminating in the Oscar in 1942 for her most famous role as the stiff upper-lip British housewife overcoming the hardships of war in “Mrs. Miniver.” Ms. Garson was lauded as The Perfect Lady during her years at MGM and Hack admitted to sordid sexual fantasies which (in his words) “tore her off her goddamned perch.” This book is little more than an account of those fantasies, loosely strung together by an implausible plot in which Hitler will be killed if Mrs. Miniver has sex with every man in London. Although declared “unreadable” by The Tolucan Times, Hack considers it to be his masterpiece.

In the Arms of the Angels

Hack originally wrote this book in 1960 under the title “Horny Angels Come to Earth to Screw Horny Men,” but reworked it after his cover artist Jonny M. told him of his fondness of Ms. McLachlan’s music and especially her song “Angel.” Although Jonny created the cover for the rewrite because he was contractually obligated to, the pornographic nature of the novel drove a rift between the two men that took years to heal.

The Screw-Ups/Operation Macho Men

Hack claimed that the novella “Operation: Macho Men” was a true account of his service with the Special Ops division of the armed forces during the Vietnam War. In truth, Hack was rejected for the service because of bone spurs in his feet and acute alcoholism and this book is actually a poorly written update of the John Wayne movie “The Sands of Iwo Jima” with (as always) some scenes of anal sex thrown in.

Billie Newman: Girl Reporter

Another TV show that Hack was obsessed with in the 1970s was the dramatic spin-off “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Lou Grant.” As is usually the case, he fell in love with the series’ attractive female character Billie Newman (played by actress Linda Kelsey) and could not be convinced that she wasn’t a real person. He ultimately began committing a series of petty crimes in the hopes that Billie Newman would write a story on them but they only resulted in his getting a six month jail sentence where a brutal beating by a fellow inmate blocked any memory of Billie Newman from his mind. He did develop a short-lived crush on Ed Asner.