Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus
Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus
No Series
Steve Winsten
$0.95
Foreword
THE MINCING MARAUDER
Jesse stepped from the porch and started slowly towards Grifton. He was leaning backwards, his hands and arms poised over his forward-canted, high-slung guns much in the manner of a praying mantis. At the same time he moved forward with tiny, pigeon-toed mincing steps. It was absurd. It almost made Grifton laugh. It was a technique Jesse had arrived at after long experimentation and which had proved incredibly efficient. But, in truth, it did look silly.
Grifton’s mind blew. He clawed at his guns, two hands trying to do the work of four. His four boys, though, triggered by his move, had their guns sweeping up by the time Grifton had just touched his. Therefore they died with their guns nearly level while Grifton was just clearing leather when Jesse’s fifth bullet bore a hole in his heart…
Prelude
THE GALLOPING GUNSLINGER
Jesse James Fitzpatrick rode into the town of Pearl with a reputation as a fast gun. Since he shot and killed and never seemed to miss anyone that so much as looked cross-eyed at him, folks weren’t inclined to say anything provocative.
But he sure was some fancy dude. Prancing around in that funny way of his, dressed all in black with more silver jewelry around his neck and on his fingers than was owned by the entire Navajo nation. Yep, there was something kinda funny about the fella…
1 review for Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus
Beat –
Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus by Steve Winsten is probably the rarest of all the gay pulps that were published by mass-market mainstream publishers. It was published in 1973, the same year as his earlier book, Bullets for the Blind. (That book only has a brief mention of homosexuality, but Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus is a full-on gay pulp with a full-on gay plot.) Most scholars and collectors have never seen or heard of Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus. It’s not mentioned at all in any of the gay pulp reference books. And the amazing cover is the reason why…
This great cover has a great story behind it—in fact it’s got two great stories behind it: One that the author wrote, and the other story is how this beautiful book got made and why it’s so rare and valuable today. Winsten was an extremely talented writer—everyone who reads his books agrees completely. Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus is an absolutely terrific story—amazingly good! That’s the first story about this book. Here’s the second story—why it’s rare—excruciatingly rare!
Curtis Books was a latecomer to mass market paperback publishing, but they were in fact part of a very old and venerable company, Curtis Publishing Company published the magazines Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal. Cyrus Curtis, with his wife Louisa’s help, started Ladies’ Home Journal in the 1880’s. By the mid 1900’s they had published a few hardbacks, notably anthologies of Norman Rockwell’s folksy covers for the Saturday Evening Post. By the early 1970’s they saw the great success of mass market paperback publisher and decided to jump on the bandwagon. By that time, Bantam had taken over the lead as the number one mass market publisher. (Dell and Pocket Books had previously been in the lead.) Curtis Circulating Company was the distributing arm for the Curtis magazines, and that gave them great leverage. They made legal agreements with Bantam (discussed on pages 274 and 351 of the incredible book, Two-Bit Culture), and consequently some of the Curtis Books’ covers were done by Bantam cover artists. The cover of Sweet, Jesse, Sweet Jesus looks EXACTLY like a Bantam book. (That is NOT the case with the earlier book, Bullets for the Blind.) Bantam had no qualms about putting nude male artwork on the covers of their gay pulps—just look at the stunning cover of Eustice Chisholm and the Works from 1968. The Bantam artists knew how to market a gay pulp to a gay audience. What they didn’t realize was that this book would be displayed in the Western section of bookstores and news stands. The browsers of western books were about 100% straight white males, and they would NEVER be seen taking a book with a nude man on the cover up to the cash register. The only white male flesh on the covers of westerns were the face and hands, and sometimes the wrists and necks. (American Indians were depicted with more bare flesh.) Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus stood out like a sore thumb in the Western sections. The policy for returning unsold copies of books was for the store or distributor to rip off the cover and return it to the publisher who would them count them and credit the store. The store (or distributor) had the legal obligation to destroy the body of the book and the publisher discarded the covers once they were counted. It was not the least bit uncommon for a book to stay in print for only one month if it had not proved itself as a good seller. (Fanny Flagg’s first book, Coming Attractions (which was co-authored anonymously by Rita Mae Brown), stayed in print for exactly one month.) Well, that’s exactly what happened to Sweet Jesse, Sweet Jesus—in one month and out the next month. Thousands of copies were printed but only the few that sold within about 30 days are those that survive today. Steve Winsten’s second book flopped, not because of its quality, but because straight guys wouldn’t buy it (based on the cover) and gay guys didn’t usually browse the Western sections. Steve Winsten got dropped and he never found another publisher. To this day, this is the one and only gay western ever published by a mainstream publishing house. Everybody learned a sad lesson—sigh!