Category: Damsels in Distress

Rosanna

Hack’s buddy, actor Eddie Frierson, recently gave an interview in which he was asked to name his favorite Halloween film. Frierson gave the offbeat (but excellent) suggestion of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 classic Rebecca, starring Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson. It’s the story of a late middle-aged widower named Maxim de Winter (played by 33 year-old Olivier aided by some pretty unconvincing white shoe polish in his hair), who marries a beautiful poor young thing who is never referred to as anything but “the second Mrs. de Winter” (a really excellent performance by Ms. Fontaine) and takes her to his magnificent mansion, only to have her life made miserable by the spectre of de Winter’s first wife Rebecca and her devoted but VERY unnerving housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Anderson).

Hack thought that it was a great suggestion for both a Halloween film AND as a subject for one of his trademark rip-offs, especially since today is the late Ms. Fontaine’s birthday and he didn’t have any other good ideas for covers for us to post.

Happy heavenly birthday to Joan Fontaine!

The Deaf Detective

When Hack learned that Jonny was going to see an audiologist about possibly needing a hearing aid, he was so delighted that he immediately wrote this novel and gave Jonny (who also makes the artwork for Hack’s book covers) explicit instructions on what he wanted depicted in the cover art.

Alas, when Jonny came back from his appointment and reported that the doctor told him that his hearing had only a microscopic decrease from last year and he wasn’t in need of a hearing aid yet, Hack (who has two hearing aids, a pacemaker and an experimental liver made from stem cells and soy product) was so depressed that he locked himself in his van and refused to come out for three days.

Burlap Face

When Jonny had dinner with Bro Joe and their friend Penny, Joe announced that from the restaurant he would be driving to a nearby mountain where he would hike to the top and sleep in a new contraption that he’d purchased which he described as “a mesh coffin.” This prompted Jonny to tease him that he would be murdered during the night by a maniac named Burlap Face. The narrative then took a turn and it was decided that it was JOE who was actually Burlap Face, and everybody laughed.

When Hack heard about it, he immediately wrote this gruesome erotic thriller based on the concept. Jonny threatened to sue him for plagiarism until he found out that the character based on his college-aged self lost his virginity to Conan the Barbarian-era Sandahl Bergman, so he signed off on it.