Episode 84: The Cherry Pit and The Bargain

Explicit content warning

05/14/25 • 114 min

It’s time for Jack and Kate to explore their vintage paperback piles and trade tales from the yellowed pages of the past. Jack wades through the sweltering psychosexual Southern Gothickry of Donald Harington’s 1965 sex comedy (?) The Cherry Pit while Kate learns what happens when Hitler faces off with Dracula in Jon Ruddy’s 1990 shock-horror masterpiece (?) The Bargain.

Will we encounter the worst Van Helsings of all time? Why don’t the cool madams in exploitation novels get their own books? What are “big dinners” and how often will “big dinners” be referenced? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

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Previous Episode

Episode 83: Rogue Moon - Sweaty Sci-Fi

Algis Budrys’s 1960 novel Rogue Moon is a masterpiece of Sweaty Sci-Fi, a freshly-patented subgenre that will be revealed during the course of this episode. Jack and Kate take a trip to the dark side of the moon to ponder the meaning of life, love, the universe, and manly perspiration.

What happens when you get some Jim Thompson in your moon mystery? Are women more dangerous than a murderous labyrinth on the moon? And what, exactly, characterizes a work of Sweaty Sci-Fi? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.