Second Ending - Evan Hunter

CONSTABLE & COMPANY 1956

1st EDITION

LONDON,UK

Evan Hunter is a story-teller of sensational power.

The Blackboard Jungle shook the educational systems of two hemispheres and has become a measuring rod for books on school life: Second Ending will evoke even deeper excitement, because it deals with juvenile drug addicts, and their problem is as burning in this country as in the United States.

We are concerned with a group of musical youngsters, living here and there in New York City, who devote their spare time to band practice. Their ambition is to be hired to play at weddings and other festivities, and gradually to qualify for membership of one of the smart dance bands which represent the summit of achievement to the dance mad young.

The story of this aspiring group is told on two levels. On one level, it relates current events; on the other it tells of events a few years earlier, and shows how, inevitably, they led to the present situation.

Bud Donato is studying hard for an exam, in his one-room bachelor flat. Into this room comes Andy Silvera, in the desperate throes of an attempt to break his addiction to heroin. A few years back Bud and Andy had played in the same band together, the one a pianist, the other a trumpeter of genius. Unsure of himself, unwanted at home, Andy is only happy making music with his trumpet or spending his time with Bud. When Bud had gone to war, Andy finds himself unable to face life on his own. He takes to boosting his weak self-confidence with drugs-first benzedrine, then reefers, and finally the awful paraphernalia of heroin.

This is a story of the phenomenon of addiction and the clawing torment of those who have been hooked, not so much by a drug as by the desire to escape a world in which they have failed.

Second Ending - Evan Hunter

THE SEARING NOVEL OF DOPE ADDICTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE

CORGI G489

1st PRINTING 1957

LONDON, UK

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY CONSTABLE & CO 1956

Heroin

Andy Silvera played trumpet in a small band. He was more than good-he was genius. 

But Andy started looking for kicks. It was small-time stuff at first - just benzedrine....

But soon Andy went on - to marijuana, and then to the killer drug - 

HEROIN

Der Mann Mit Dem Goldenen Arm - Nelson Algren

ROWOHLT 194

6TH PRINTING JANUARY 1960

HAMBURG, GERMANY

COVER ART BY KARL GRÖNING JR. / GISELA PFERDMENGES

German edition of "The Man With The Golden Arm".

Come Back On Monday - Sheila Solomon Klass

Raped as a child, daughter of a prostitute..the streets were her home

FOUR SQUARE 1411

1ST PRINTING JANUARY 1966

LONDON, UK

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY ABELARD-SCHUMANN 1960

She was fourteen, more child than woman, but this had not mattered to the bum, two years ago, who had grabbed her in the dark, filthy hall of the tenement, pushed her down the cold stone floor and raped her there amid the garbage and ashes. She had fought him, kicking and biting at the greedy, shaking hands that tore at her...fought him until he punched her so hard that she tasted warm blood oozing from where a front tooth had been. From him she got a panting testamonial in the ashy darkness, 'You'll be better'n your old lady in a coupla years, kid-better'n your old lady.'

Was it too late now to save her-from the 'Ebony Deb' gang of delinquent girls; from her family who wanted her to be sent to work; from the teachers who, with their narrow-minded discipline, were more concerned about keeping order in the hall-ways than about a miscarriage in the class-room; from the young men who sought her for their own designs?