BE: A lot of jumping around. But how about Pike Books? You used several pen names there, didn’t you?
CAN: Alec Rivere for Lost City of the Damned.
BE: Where’d that name come from?
CAN: The Alec is an alternate for Alexander, my middle name. Rivere an alternate from Stu Rivers. And I still don’t remember where I came up with the Rivers name. Probably just looked good with the name Stu. I’m not certain about the name Stu. But there was a sci-fi writer by the name of Stu Byrne, whom I had admired as a young fan.
BE: Other pen names for Pike?
CAN: Yes. Of course. My old stand-by John Davidson for Appointment with Terror, a second book on assignment. Then when Three Parts Evil came out the name of Hal Lambert was developed. This was a creation of Pike’s.
BE: I notice bit of annoyance in your voice.
CAN: Actually, at the time, I was a bit annoyed. I’d submitted it under the byline of John Davidson. Bob simply didn’t want to run too many books under the same byline. So he plunked on a new byline without con-sulting me. Anyway, that byline was used again for Julie, with Dad’s cover. I was, of course, selling to other publishers, too.
BE: We’re jumping ahead too fast. What about Scorpion Books? You used several pen names there, didn’t you?
CAN: Jay Davis for Wild Spree, an obvious change from John Da-vidson. I used Stu Rivers for Hollywood Nymph and Sex Queen. Alec Rivere for Wantons of Betrayal, David Johnson for Jungle Nymph, Fred MacDonald for With Passions Burning and Alex Blake for Nobody Loves a Tramp. They are all pretty logical and obvious. Take Alex Blake, which was originally used for Love Me to Death (Epic Books). The Alex for Al-exander, of course. And Blake as an old family name, on my mother’s side. The Fred MacDonald name Larry Maddox tagged onto a liquor article I wrote for him.
BE: I notice one name, Rex Charles, for Nympho Models.
CAN: The publisher created that. I guess they got the Charles from my first name: can’t guess about where Rex came from. I didn’t re-use that name. Some years later I revised the book for Powell Publications as Sex Bash by Jack Donaldson [Bill Hughes did a great cover for this book]. That was the only time Rex Charles was used.
BE: In Books Are Everything, Vol. 6, No. 1, Whole Number 25, Lynn Munroe’s interview with you lists some of your pen names and books....
CAN: All of them. He was out here several times and is a very knowl-edgeable fellow.
BE: Then I’ll refer to his list. The first Nuetzel pen name is: Mark Allen.
CAN: That was for Zentner’s Bee-Line books. Hot Pants Karen. An in-teresting little story goes with this. Dave was my first book publisher when he was in Hollywood. Now he was in New York and I’d lost contact with him. Well, when I submitted a book to Bee-Line, I got a letter from Zentner opening with a: “Remember me?” Well, I had sent some seventeen pages of what would become Hot Pants Karen. David wrote after his first opening statement a furious letter saying he’d take the book, but that I was NEVER, in the future, to submit anything short of fifty pages and an out-line.
BE: Was he always such a stout, friendly fellow?
CAN: Actually there are a lot of funny stories about Dave Zentner. Just about every professional in the field has gone through his “offices” insofar as either working directly for him or selling stuff to him. He was for some very difficult to work with; for others simply a problem to work around. He was tough. He helped a lot of people become professionals. I learned a lot from him. I owe a lot to him.
BE: To get back to the list: how about Blake Andrews?
CAN: Just a name I used. A play on Alex Blake. I used it on the book I released as Come to Me Baby. It is obvious.
BE: Which reminds me: I wanted to ask you about the book On the Make by Alex Blake. Cute combo.
CAN: Almost embarrassingly so.
BE: How’s that?
CAN: I didn’t catch the way it sounded until after it was published. Make and Blake and….
BE: Yes. That’s what I meant. Then it was an accident?
CAN: An accident. I must admit. Guilty as not charged.
BE: Jack Belmont was used for your Take Me, I’m Yours.
CAN: I don’t know where the name came from. Probably the Jack came out of John. Who knows where the Bel or the “mont” derived. Though I might point out that the cover, by the above mentioned Bill Hughes, was the first cover he did for me. I had met him at another pub-lisher’s party. Bill had done a lot of covers for this publisher. I learned that he was a science fiction fan. We exchanged phone names. At the time Dad was doing covers for me. So when he got ill I called Bill. I went to his of-fice in Woodland Hills (just about twenty minutes from my home) and we talked, he did a pencil sketch and I Okayed it. I had his cover art by dead-line. I then had Bill do his first sci-fi cover, the one for Science Fiction Worlds of Forrest J Ackerman & Friends. When Dad couldn’t do any more work for me, I let Bill take over the duties.
BE: Sounds like you were really swinging along.
CAN: I was. But that’s another story. I think you wanted to keep to the pen names.
BE: You’re right. Well, back to the list. I’ll skip over the ones we’ve covered. I notice you used a Fred Davis and then a Jay Davis....
CAN: Davis is obviously from Davidson. The Fred from Fred Mac-Donald. The Jay from “J” for John.
BE: Where did George Fredrics come from?
CAN: Originally from Larry Maddox. I had sold him a couple of liquor articles and he, for some reason all his own, decided to use different bylines than the ones I had picked. But Larry [a pen name, by the way, for a nice fellow] figured other publishers used the names, so he simply created new names. Fred MacDonald, which I used, as noted, quite a few times. George Fredrics became an alternate “quality” pen name.
BE: Could you explain that?
CAN: Well, I saved my own name for “better” stuff. Meaning non-adult fiction. But. The problem was still there: too many things published at the same time in the same market place. So. Pick a name. Please.
BE: You have a Howard Johnson as the replacement for Fred MacDon-ald when you re-released it for Powell as Jean. How’d that happen? I mean, it’s the name of a motel chain….
CAN: Believe it or not, I didn’t realize that at the time. Or did it exist then? I don’t know. Johnson came from John Davidson. The Howard...who knows?
BE: You were a bit casual about pen names, weren’t you?
CAN: Casual might be the wrong word. You are creating a new “real” person. And...well, you pick them, sometimes, to fit the books. Like I picked Fritz Jantzen for Berlin Beds. That was set in Germany. My wife, Brigitte, gave me the background material. She was born in Germany. She also helped me figure out a pen name.
BE: Though you didn’t use it when you republished the book as: Kris-ta—there you used Fred MacDonald, again. Any reason?
CAN: Not that I can remember. I simply had to pick a byline.
BE: What about Jay West? Rita Wilde. That last is a—
CAN: Wild name. Well, to cover West, first. I used that as a reprint name for one of the publishers. The Rita Wilde I believe was a result of the publisher being a Rita...the name was picked by the publisher. Not me.
BE: There are some thirty-one pen names credited to you. Is that all of them?
CAN: There was one other that I will not reveal.
BE: Oh?
CAN: Just call it one of those things. And if I did tell you I’d insist that you didn’t reveal it publicly. So.... I don’t have a copy of the book.
BE: And there were no other pen names?
CAN: I don’t think so. Not published, anyway. There were some manu-scripts I sold to a publisher that were never, as far as I know, published.
BE: Didn’t get paid?
CAN: Got paid. They simply didn’t release them. I don’t really know what happened to the books. And, quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
BE: Why? What happened? What was wrong with them?
CAN: The question
is wrong. You should have asked: what was right with them. This was towards the end of my writing career and the adult field was getting really bad...I did these books for fast, secure bucks. Easy sales. Dull, boring, hard writing because the “adult” material totally domi-nated the plot material to the point where there simply wasn’t much room for a real storyline.
BE: Certainly you had been doing a lot of porno type writing, especially in the Carson Davis books.
CAN: That was different. The style of the writing and the form of the books let you editorialize, and make direct points. In a novel, which opened with an orgasm and built for 200 pages...it was different. No editorializing. Even “Carson Davis” drew a line in the sand, so to speak. Beyond that point “He/I” would not go.
BE: Where, generally, then, was that line?
CAN: Well, I never felt comfortable with sex between adults and chil-dren. This was a no-no unless you could use it to make a moral point.
BE: Like?
CAN: Crime and punishment.
BE: Yet in these Carson Davis books you deal with all kinds of sexual situations.
CAN: And in graphic detail. The way these books were conceived was the assumption that people talked to Carson because he was non-judgmental. Well, he was, but he would help people who wanted it or needed help. He would suggest the direction they should go to get that help. Like to the local head shrink. Their case history thus became an example of an issue and a suggested method of dealing with that issue. Thus it made a moral point. The more detailed and graphic the sexual content the more “lecturing” could be slapped into place. That kind of balancing act pleased the legal eagles and it certainly appealed to the moral side of, at least, this writer. In fact I think the Carson Davis books are the best of the lot—from the writer’s point of view, that is. The fiction books that followed, the ones I’m talking about that were not published, weren’t interested in moral lessons.
BE: Should they have been?
CAN: Not from the viewpoint of the reader or the publisher. The pub-lisher wanted to please the reader; the reader wanted to feel good—to put it nicely.
BE: Rather very nicely. I’d say. You’re talking about masturbation.
CAN: No. I’m talking about the alternate of seeking out a prostitute. Or the chance of abusing some other person. Regardless of what some blue noses might think, porno doesn’t a sex crime make. The idea that people read sex books and then run out and commit all sorts of perverse sexual crimes is, in itself, a perversion of reality. Sure, some people act out their sexual fantasies on other people; they do terrible things. And some of these perverts read “adult” fiction. But to connect the reading of adult fiction to sex crimes is like saying everybody who eats tomatoes dies, thus conclud-ing that eating tomatoes kills people. It doesn’t make sense; it is nonsense. And the subject of a totally different discussion. Nonetheless, it is obvious what happens when people are exposed to erotically stimulating material; they are erotically stimulated. Each and every consumer of the product will, quite obviously, have a different response to it. Some might, even, turn to their marital (or non-marital) partner to share one heck of a hot erotic expe-rience—of one kind or another. Mutually shared; mutually enjoyed; mutu-ally desired.
BE: But you are morally justifying your writing—
CAN: No. I don’t think so. What I’m trying to say, bluntly, regardless of my personal involvement (or lack therein), is that “sex books” don’t do the social damage some radical people think they do. There are always the crazies. Let me put it this way. The society in which I grew up, in the ’40s and ’50s the pre-Kinsey Report days, was a bit different from today. The publicly acclaimed moral ethic and code, at that time, was: be a virgin until the wedding night; sex was only for babies. And if you followed all the laws in all the states at once, it meant man on top, wham-bam hope you’re satisfied and pregnant, mamma. Where’s the baby? Gotta wait nine months, honey.
BE: Okay. The religious right would, today, say that’s the only way to live.
CAN: And you can be too “right” also. It is obvious from the last few years how the so called TV religious leaders were not as holy as they so claimed to be. They preached one thing and went out and got prostitutes or robbed the “bank, “so to speak. Let’s not get into that. Preaching one moral ethic while practicing another is wrong and immoral. That is what creates confusion and social problems. In a repressed society you have real perverts and a lot of sexual problems. In an open society you don’t have that kind of repressive problem. At least you don’t have the lie. I don’t want to go into this part of the issue. I covered the subject completely in the Carson Davis books. That’s why I liked him. But in the “fiction” books any went...all kinds of sex...no holds barred, from normal to S&M. There wasn’t ANY counterpoint to suggest some kind of healthy balance.
BE: What happened to your non-judgmental POV?
CAN: Maybe the term non-judgmental is a bit strong. It is one thing to say that certain moral attitudes are right, quite another to say anything goes all the way to dismemberment. The kind of line you draw is a realistic moral ethic for adults.
BE: Meaning?
CAN: In the private, between consenting adults. Be that one, two, three, four or more. As long as everybody is consenting and adult. Or even better consenting, responsible adults.
BE: Responsible, meaning?
CAN: Able to be responsible for the results of their acts. This means they have to be educated and knowledgeable and willing to take responsi-bility for their actions. They are able to care for any baby making results, too. But that’s another issue that does not fit in the subject matter of adult fiction—which is sex fantasy—and—what is reality. In these books it was, for a “fantasy” purposes just about impossible to get pregnant. No babies; no responsibilities. Sex without any results other than PLEASURE, man, PLEASURE, woman. Pleasure without punishment. Play without pay. All of which makes sense. We were in fantasyland. Fiction is make believe. And the best kind of sex is sex without punishment; sex without any possi-ble chance of ending up with a baby, with the greatest levels of erotic pleasure. Good, clean fun. So to speak. And that was the purpose of these books. But for a writer, who wants to say something.... Well. Point made. I better get back on track.
BE: But then, it all does strangely enough tie in. doesn’t it?
CAN: Well, for me it did. I stopped writing, thus creating pen names, when the field became unmanageable. When it was impossible to insert a message now and then. Plus: quite honestly, in the Carson Davis books I was able to say so much. I think I had said everything I had to say on the subject. When it was impossible to underscore a kind of moral message di-rectly or indirectly into a book, I quit.
BE: That would be an interesting way to end the interview, but….
CAN: You want something more?
BE: Well, there was one more pen name we didn’t cover.
CAN: I was wondering if you would bring that up.
BE: I notice you used a Ewing byline. How’d that happen?
CAN: Oh, yes, the Frank Ewing. Not sure about that. Probably your brother.
BE: Sure. Interesting, though I don’t have a brother by the name of Frank.
CAN: Maybe your pen name.
BE:I don’t believe in using pen names.
CAN: Are you certain? Any writer using a pen name would hardly ad-mit to the truth at the moment of using it. Would they?
BE: Perhaps you have a point there. Anyway, that name stuck out, for the obvious reason.
CAN: Some names just develop out of thin air. I don’t know where the Frank came from, either, unless it was from Franklin/Franklyn. Probably from that. Frankly speaking. But I don’t know where the Franklin name came from other than Larry Maddox’s signed it to that article.
BE: So, perhaps we might bring this to a conclusion. Unless you have something more to say.
CAN: Well, I think it would be fitting and proper to reveal something about you.
BE: Me? Why would
you want to do that?
CAN: Well, wasn’t the purpose of this article to reveal something about writing and writers? To reveal the how and why bylines come about?
BE: Yes. I suppose so.
CAN: Martin Hawks asked for an article concerning Adult Pen Names and what I might be able to reveal concerning the field and especially con-cerning my own personal involvement. Well, I got to thinking about that and considered a direct article and then reconsidered that. Right?
BE: Well, yes. You did point that out to me at the very beginning when—
CAN: I figured the interview style might work better for several rea-sons. One was just the general form, the flow, the movement from subject to subject. The ease of reading. Whatever.
BE: Whatever.
CAN: Then I suggested that you might be a perfect interviewer.
BE: Yeah. That’s what you did say to me. You know me best, was what you said.
CAN: Something like that.
BE: You insist on going further with this?
CAN: Why not? I could do it as a footnote. But that would be cheating, now wouldn’t it?
BE: Well, I don’t think it matters one way or the other, once the truth is out.
CAN: Probably not. So before all that happens I want to express my thanks for your having taken the effort to do this interview. It has made it much easier for me to make my points.
BE: So you say. Well, you also said a lot of other things. Like what a kick in the head if you’d do it, Bill. What a way to make the final point and illustrate by action the reason for pen names. Or, at least, some pen names.
CAN: Yes, not bad. Why not swallow hard and just admit the truth.
BE: I guess you want me to say I really am Frank Ewing’s brother.
CAN: Not really. Come on. Spit it out.
BE: Oh, gosh, oh, golly gee. Whiz. I know you always liked the name of Bill, ever since you were a kid with that dern imaginary friend. You drove your parents bats by insisting they act as if he was really there. You named him Bill. So I picked that name.
CAN: Not bad for a start. Now come out with the rest.
BE: Well, quiet obviously you couldn’t interview yourself. So Bill had to do it.
CAN: Right. Thus Bill Ewing, you have served as a very special pen name for me, and I want to thank you for inventing yourself for the purpose of this article.