Pleasure Ground

Orrie Hitt (1916-1975) was an Upstate New York author of sleaze paperbacks who made a living writing a lot of books very quickly. The upshot is that he became a very good author and often incorporated crime and noir among his PG-13 sex scenes. Pleasure Ground was a 1961 Kozy Book that has been reprinted as a Kindle release by Fiction Hunters Press. 

Our narrator is a 6’6” human giant named Bert Forbes, and he’s new in town looking for a fresh start as a farm worker after learning that his beloved wife was faithless and gave birth to another man’s child. After spending a year as a drifter, Bert lands a gig on Flint Collins’ farm. Old Man Collins is 50 and just met a much-younger woman on a cattle-buying trip and married her immediately. She will be arriving to the farm soon on a bus and the farmhands have been warned to keep their distance. 

With that set-up, the novel pretty much writes itself thereafter. Bert meets a beautiful, stacked girl at a community dance, and she lives next door to the Collins Ranch and refuses to sell her land. Bert sees her naked in the woodsy swimming pond adjacent to the farm (as depicted on the cover), and the two develop a sweet interest in one another. Meanwhile, the new Mrs. Collins arrives and her breasts are even bigger and more voluptuous than the reader anticipated. How can Bert resist?

The new lady of the house seems to have the hots for our hero, Bert. His boss is a dick (who gets worse as the novel progresses), so Bert isn’t too worried about the ethical dilemma. He just wants to get paid without becoming the victim of workplace violence. There are other women in his orbit and the horny farmhands make it quite a compelling little soap opera. There’s plenty of off-page sex as well. 

Hitt’s presentation of the lives of these broke-ass farm people felt like the author was channeling the down-and-out urban blight of his literary contemporary, David Goodis. Both writers did a fantastic job of portraying society’s losers and the circumstances that drive them into self-destructive behavior and criminality. 

There’s nothing in this paperback that you won’t see coming, but Hitt does an admirable job of making it compelling nonetheless. The violent crime that encompasses the novel’s non-sexual climax is well-developed and earned through careful character development. 

Hitt was the best at this type of book from the soft-core sleaze paperback era, and Pleasure Ground is one of his finest works. If you’ve never read one of his novels, this is a fine place to start. Buy a copy of the book HERE.