American pulp : how paperbacks brought modernism to main street American Pulp tells the story of the midcentury golden age of pulp paperbacks and how they brought modernism to Main Street democratized literature and ideas spurred social mobility and helped readers fashion new identities. Drawing on extensive original research Paula Rabinowitz unearths the far reaching political social and aesthetic impact of the pulps between the late 1930s and early 1960s Dust jacket Focusing on important episodes in pulp history Rabinowitz looks at the wide ranging effects of free paperbacks distributed to World War II servicemen and women; how pulps prompted important censorship and First Amendment cases; how some gay women read pulp lesbian novels as how to dress manuals; the unlikely appearance in pulp science fiction of early representations of the Holocaust; how writers and artists appropriated pulp as a literary and visual style; and much more. Examining their often lurid packaging as well as their content American Pulp is richly illustrated with reproductions of dozens of pulp paperback covers many in color Publisher description