McCaffery: Charles Gorham & Comic Books

How did you spend last weekend? Well, I didn’t make it to APE (wrong coast) so I spent some time in my local charity-based thrift shop looking for a Halloween costume. No wait, just kidding. I was there because they happen to have a really great used book section and since most used book stores are gone like yesterday’s VHS, a thrift shop remains a shining beacon of musty old paperbacks that smell of basements and cigarettes. That’s where I picked this up: McCaffery by Charles Gorham (Crest Books, 1962).

It’s one of those heavy-handed books that’s packed with stereotypes and talks about sex with the oddball euphemisms of the day, but also with shocking (for the time) language. And the reason I picked it up was because of the back cover copy, which I’ll get to in a little while.

On the pages inside, you get to find great paragraphs like this, as McCaffery enjoys the company of a woman: “I kissed her on the mouth and held it there. I was in charge. I was a man. I could feel it in my blood, the sense of my manhood. I was a man and there was no one in the whole world except me…” Issues much, Mr. Gorham?

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