Avon 240 End as a Man by Calder Willingham 1950

Avon 240 End as a Man by Calder Willingham 1950 very good + condition (see photos)

Collectors identify this as Avon #240, published in 1950. The 240 appears in the round Avon logo in the upper left, next to what should be the 25¢ price. The "Specially Revised and Edited for Avon Books" line at the bottom is important. Paperback houses of this period often condensed or toned down racier or longer hardcovers for the drugstore rack, so this text differs from the 1947 Vanguard Press hardcover. The cover is typical of Avon's lurid-but-literary packaging: a sweaty, anguished young man with a cigarette and a painterly background. It sold a serious novel with pulp-style art. The blurb at top is from James T. Farrell, author of Studs Lonigan, taken from his New York Times Book Review notice. Farrell was a champion of gritty realism, so his endorsement signaled "important book" to buyers.

End as a Man (1947) was Willingham's debut. It is set at a Southern military academy and follows the cadets under the sadistic, manipulative upperclassman Jocko de Paris, who bullies and blackmails younger boys. The academy is widely understood to be modeled on The Citadel, which Willingham attended briefly. The book was frank about hazing, cruelty, drinking, and sexuality, including homosexual undertones, which was unusual for its time. Willingham's career began in controversy with this book. Soon after publication, New York's anti-vice crusaders brought obscenity charges against the publisher, and a court threw them out. That notoriety helped sales, and it's part of why Avon wanted it.

Calder Willingham was born December 23, 1922, in Atlanta, the son of a hotel manager, and died in 1995. He adapted the book into a play in New York. That 1953 production gave Ben Gazzara his breakout role as Jocko, and it became the 1957 film better known as The Strange One. Willingham later became a major screenwriter. His credits include Paths of Glory, One-Eyed Jacks, The Graduate (co-written), Little Big Man, and Rambling Rose, which he adapted from his own 1972 novel. His other novels include Geraldine Bradshaw, Natural Child, To Eat a Peach, Eternal Fire, and Providence Island.