Ed Wood’s Trashy Old Novels Are Fantastic

Will Leitch
·Editor

Our love for "Ed Wood" on this site is well-documented: We're pretty sure it's the last great thing both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have done. (Even with everything going on in that movie, it still fits in a glorious Bill Murray cameo. Impressive.) So in spite of our avowed "we don't watch bad movies on purpose" credo, we'll always have a soft spot in our hearts for Ed Wood himself. Though it's possible we just are fond of Johnny Depp as Wood, rather than Wood himself, who, by the end of his life, was working mostly in porn and quite pathetic. Of course, the real Ed Wood was keeping himself plenty busy.

The most productive use of Wood's later-in-life time was spent writing trashy porno paperbacks, and if you're in New York between now and December 4, you can see a complete exhibit of Wood's oddly fascinating pulp novels. That might seem like an odd way to spend a Saturday in New York City during the holiday season, but you haven't seen the titles and covers yet. Check out some of these doozies:

  • "Death Of A Transvestite: LET ME DIE IN DRAG!"

  • "Suburbia Confidential!"

  • "Gay Black." (Minimalist, this one.)

  • "The Homosexual Generation: Told -- For The First Time -- The Real Story Behind What Might Easily Become, Not "The Beat Generation," Not "The Lost Generation" ... But The Sick, Sick, Sick, Homosexual Generation!" (Possibly Outdated?)

  • "Sex Shrouds And Caskets: The shocking, revealing truth of what takes place sexually in our so-called civilized culture." (That one's our favorite.)

The covers are really not to be missed. You should really go see this exhibit, downtown, if you're in NYC this month. Sure beats waiting in the TKTS line for two hours. You're not getting in "The Book of Mormon," people, sorry.

ED WOOD'S SLEAZE PAPERBACKS [Boo-Hooray]