Smoke by Ruby Jean Jensen (1988): When the Smoke is Going Down

It may surprise you to learn that on my used bookstore searches I very rarely see any of the dozen or so titles Ruby Jean Jensen (1927 - 2010) had published by Zebra Books throughout the 1980s and '90s. Guess they've become collectibles going by the inflated prices being asked for used copies on Amazon. Then on my recent trip to the Iliad Bookshop I happened upon a copy of Smoke (Zebra, Jan 1988) that was in acceptable condition, for $1.50.

I should have paid less. They should have paid me to take it off their shelves.

If you read Smoke on the sly as a curious pre-teen you might have fond memories of it, but for a 45-year-old adult man with some experience reading horror, the novel offers about as much substance as its title. While not unutterably wretched as that other Zebra perennial William W. Johnstone, nothing in Smoke offered any surprise or delight, nor even any tacky thrills. 

Jensen's prose is workmanlike, serviceable, obvious; if you were a creative writing teacher you wouldn't fail her, because the grammar and punctuation seem to be mostly correct and there are neither sentence fragments nor run-ons. However suspense, metaphor, analogy, insight, wit, humor: such writer’s tools seem to be missing from Ms. Jensen's creative toolbox. My god it's all dull dull dull and dry as mummy dust. 

I will say the story is told in a plain, straightforward manner and the characters seem to have motivation, I guess. For me though it was an enormous uphill trudge to even skim Smoke.

You can guess the ending too of course. Books like Smoke and writers like Jensen simply are not, nor ever have been, my kind of horror whatsoever. I avoided these skull-adorned novels back in the day because... well, because my impression was, going by the ones I've read, precisely correct. I feel kinda bad criticizing Smoke for what it's not—a novel for an adult—and yet I have to be honest: it's not good or fun or interesting, and every book should be at least one of those things. Smoke alas is none.

Though I do think some of her covers are fun. 

Night of the Living Dolls

Back from my vacation, no bookstores in the Mexican resort town I visited, but I did read two books in four days: Elmore Leonard's superior crime novel from '84, Stick, and Robert Bloch's not-so-superior novel of Lovecraftiana, 1979's Strange Eons. Review of the latter to come, as well as another - very good - novel I read last week but haven't quite gotten the review down. Anyway, here's some killer dolls from Zebra for ya.

Ruby Jean Jensen: The Paperback Covers Redux

In the interest of completion, here are covers from Ruby Jean Jensen's 1970s Gothic novels, well before she got the Zebra treatment for her horror fiction. The Girl Who Didn't Die (Warner 1975) is my favorite: great painting, the woman's expression of fear perfectly captured, and in an odd twist, she's not actually running from the castle. Perhaps she will try to get help there to protect herself from whatever's chasing her across the misty moors, and then find a whole new world of horror waiting...

The House That Samael Built (Warner 1974) This Samael sounds like one pretty cool dude.

Hear the Children Cry (Leisure 1983) Meh. More like her Zebra paperbacks.

Seventh All Hallows' Eve (Warner 1974) Uh, what? Some kinda tribal or kabuki mask?

House at River's Bend (Dell 1975) Boring run-of-the-mill standard Gothic romance.

Child of Satan House (Manor 1978) Golf club? Cane? I expect her to break into a little soft-shoe at any moment.

Satan's Sister (Major 1978) That is one bizarrely specific tag line.

For more on Jensen, be sure to check out Phantom of Pulp's post.

Ruby Jean Jensen: The Paperback Covers

I haven't read word one of Ruby Jean Jensen's paperback original horror novels of the 1980s, published by Zebra Books (Z for dead last) and I probably won't ever. But I have to give props to whoever was doing her book covers back in the day because these are some freaky and unsettling images. I think my favorite is the above Home Sweet Home (ugh, really?) from 1985, which adds some bloodshot eyeballs to one-up Mrs. Bates. And boy do I love skulls with hair! Thanks be to artist Richard Newton for this one.

Baby Dolly (1991) Evil babies and dolls! They were everywhere in this era. But of course. The delightful Little Miss Zombie has a review here.

Lost and Found (1990) Another staple of '80s horror, the utterly generic title. I kinda like this cover, actually. Is she an albino or a statue come to life? Who knows but I find the pinpoints of light for eyes wonderfully malevolent.

Wait and See (1986) Gotdamn you have to admit eyeballs in skulls are effin' terrifying. But the hair overplays the hand, as it were. You just gotta laugh, right? Right?

Best Friends (1985) Now we even have animal skulls. I heard this in my head as a kid would say it, Best Fwends. I think a very young Andy Richter modeled for this one.

With a glorious cover by David Mann, the 1987 novel Chain Letter reminds me of a story I wrote when I was 12 about a newspaper boy who gets run over by a drunk driver; the driver rushes home without reporting the accident and tries to shrug it off, doesn't report the crime. Of course said drunk driver is also a subscriber to the newspaper so he's awakened later that night when his doorbell rings and he answers it to find.... well, you figure it out.

Smoke (1987) leaves me pretty underwhelmed because that's not really smoke, is it? It's like a green fog that will turn into a genie any minute. At least the artist, Mann again, is reading the books he's designing the covers for.

Victoria (1990) gives us two more dolls bent on evil. Or just one? Oh, I don't know.

Yes, they're utterly ridiculous and anyone over the age of 13 caught reading one should die of embarrassment but they really capture the essence of paperback horror originals that took up so much rack space in bookstores, drugstores, grocery checkout lanes (I can still recall one of a skeleton kid on a trike with a shiver), only to turn up at yard sales and thrift stores worn out and ready to fall apart. Undiscerning readers would trade these in for credit at the used bookstore I worked at and yes, I looked down my nose upon them while I eagerly devoured the latest King, Barker, Kathe Koja, Skipp and Spector, Brian Hodge, Joe Lansdale, Hot Blood, Borderlands, or Splatterpunks anthology. Snob, you say? Who, moi?