I became aware of pulp artist Morgan Kane in 1988, after receiving the cover for my first book, Amazon Lily, published by Pocket Books, one of the major paperback publishers of that era and the first house to actually publish paperbacks. Their idea was the create books that were small enough to fit in your pocket.
In those pre-digital times, when books were written on typewriters, authors had very little contact with anybody at the publishing house, even when under contract. Anything pertaining to our books tended to arrive in the mail at unexpected times, with little or no warning and no explanation. So the cover flat (which is what it sounds like—the front and back uncut book cover—showed up, the lack of fanfare suggesting an overworked assistant who barely had time to stick it in the mail, let alone jot down any kind of message.
Even though I’d never heard the name of the artist, he already lived in my subconscious because I’d seen his work in a lot of different places.
Today it's hard to imagine a publishing house hiring an artist to paint a book cover, especially for a book like mine. Editors even had a phrase for these books that were simply published. Throwaway books. That might be how I ended up with such a campy, pulpy, genre-questionable cover. In today’s world, the image seems a pretty good fit for romantic adventure. Back then, there was a lot of WTF about it, especially from editors at competing houses. And readers reported finding the book in the men’s adventure section of bookstores, if they could find a copy at all.
After glowing 5-star reviews and wildfire word-of-mouth (awards would come later), readers were eager to read it, but few copies had been printed. People who managed to snag a copy, didn’t loan it. Booksellers actually rented their copies rather than selling them. The book was that scarce, so scarce some people thought the shortage had been faked by the publishing house to create buzz. Nope. It had a print run of 7,000 copies. That might sound like a lot, but this was back when average romances were seeing runs of 100 - 300k. Years later, after print run numbers decreased everywhere in New York publishing, my Frasier suspense books were seeing runs of 150k — just to compare and illustrate how baffling this situation was.
I’d written a book that would have been a bestseller if only those thousands and thousands of eager readers could have gotten their hands on it. That monumental publishing fiasco was a lot for a new author to deal with, and it took a long time for me to move past it. It’s also weird, and frankly reassuring, to think something like this couldn’t happen in today’s world of digital publishing.
Amazon Lily was reissued by Bantam Books several years later (with a hideous cover), but it’s impossible to find a copy of the original. I even had a hard time finding an image for this article, but I eventually came across a review site with the original cover. (I do have a box of original books, but they, along with the framed cover flat, are packed away.)
I’ve since reissued Amazon Lily as an ebook. Warning to anybody considering buying it. Like a lot of things, the story hasn’t aged that well and should maybe be left back in the eighties with the rest of the obnoxious adventure heroes who get brought to their knees by a naive yet spunky female. :D
If you’re interested in reading something more recent, maybe check out The Night I Died. It was released October 24, and can be read for free with Kindle Unlimited. Another really popular title, and one that was awarded the International Thriller Award, is The Body Reader.
Somewhere around 1989, I wrote a letter to Morgan through my publisher to see if he might sell the painting. I never heard back. No surprise, because the letter probably never reached him. Then, around 2000, I contacted him through his website, where I’d come across the painting for sale. It was more than I could afford, and I asked if he ever sold prints. No, but he made me a print free of charge and sent it to Lily’s mom, which was what he’d immediately started calling me. Over the next couple of years, he sent me little surprises, like signed prints of his Coke Santas.
Read a little more about Morgan here.
Norman Rockwell also painted Coke Santas, but Morgan’s were more playful. Even though you can see slight similarities in their overall style, Morgan’s had a humorous sexiness, a restrained avant-garde (sticking to the assignment, but not fully sticking to the assignment) quality. One Christmas, a television ad featured a Santa skating in Central Park. The Santa was Morgan. I tried to find it on YouTube, but no luck. If you find it, let me know!
At one point, Morgan contacted me to let me know that he’d sold Lily to someone who adored the painting. He wanted me to know it would have a wonderful home, where it would be cherished and cared for and loved. And while I was sad to hear this and would have preferred it stay with Morgan, I was glad to hear it was going to someone who’d appreciate it.
But of course that didn’t happen.
Enter the mustache-twirling villain, the guy who’d talked Morgan into selling Lily at a big discount because of his love for it. He was just a collector buying paintings to resell. A short time later, he resold the painting at an art auction for more than he’d paid for it. Morgan was very upset and said he wished he’d given it to me.
At that point, the painting entered a market world for art, where paintings are continuously bought and resold. I tried to keep my eye on sales over the years. Sometimes I wouldn't know of another change-of-hands until the auction was over. But this summer I got an alert before the auction date.
And I decided to bid on the painting. My painting. Morgan’s painting.
My chances of actually getting the art were slim. This was an auction house where a Beatrice Potter could easily go for 30k with nobody blinking. A newspaper comic during this particular auction went for 140k.
But shockingly the two other Lily bidders dropped out right away. Lily wasn’t one of Morgan’s famous or popular paintings, and they probably weren’t expecting any competition.
I won. I got the painting.
I immediately wanted to tell Morgan. I knew he’d be so happy to hear the news. But Morgan was dead. When I first contacted him through his website, he was ninety-three. And later, when I quit hearing from him, I assumed he was ill or worse. It turns out he died in 2014, at the age of 98.
I don’t believe in an afterlife, even though I sometimes wish I did. In times like these it would be reassuring for me to know he knows, but there is still that supreme satisfaction of closing the circle and righting a wrong, bringing the painting home. The painting, after thirty-five years, is finally where he and I both wanted it to be. In the hands of Lily’s mom.
I'm so happy Lily's mom finally has the painting!
How wonderful! I am so happy for you and Lily!