1971 Libertine Books recreated cover, 1986 and 1990 American Arts Enterprises covers (left to right)
Joe Weiss, 1971, Carny Freak-Out, LR-209, Brooklyn, NY: Libertine Books, 192 pp. Mass market format paperback original edition.
Joe Weiss, 1986, Carny Freak-Out, WIP-102, North Hollywood, CA: American Art Enterprises, Inc., 192 pp. Mass market format reprint of Weiss (1971).
Joe Weiss, 1990, Carny Freak-Out, SMN-186, Sun Valley, CA: American Art Enterprises, Inc., 192 pp. Mass market format reprint of Weiss (1971).
Isabel shuddered convulsively and closed her
eyes to avoid seeing the horror of the mighty grizzly bear taking her the way a
man would. A moment later, she felt her legs completely wedged apart, as the
biggest, thickest, fullest cock in all of captivity forced itself into the
soft, tender walls of her twat.
Joseph David Weiss (November 10, 1925 [Manhattan, NY] – December 1986 [Brooklyn, NY]) was a prolific author of pulp fiction and erotica. The only child of a Hungarian immigrant father (Theodore) and an American mother (Bertha), Weiss grew up in the Bronx and Manhattan. During the Second World War, he was employed as a jazz session musician and public relations specialist. Spring 1950 found Weiss living with his parents in the Bronx and working for the U.S. Postal Service. At that point his writing career took off and from 1951 – 1971+ he authored at least three dozen sleazy novels, many of them for an interrelated group of New York City publishers (Beacon Books, Falcon Books, Elite Books, Toga Books, and Key Publishing). Weiss’ works are often set in the gritty mid-century New York City that he knew so well, focusing on juvenile delinquents, dangerous women, street gangs, and fast-paced urban life. Judging from his writings, Weiss had an irrepressible spanking fetish. His juvenile delinquency novels have become particularly collectible (e.g., Girls Out of Hell! [1952] and Gang Girl [1957]). Recently discovered advertising materials from 1968 credit Weiss with authoring two Claude Dauphine novels (Roamin’ Carnival [1959] and Roamin’ Circus [1959]) that I previously examined in Delights and Nightmares on the Midway (Pontolillo, 2025).
Less is known about the publisher of Carny Freak-Out. Libertine Books, Inc. was a small Brooklyn, NY-based publisher that issued at least 14 adult paperback novels (reprints not included) from 1969-1971. Their books bore explicit titles and provocative covers, with a focus on bisexuality, swinging, and sadomasochism. They were distributed by T.L. Chow’s American Magazine Distributors, a Miami, FL-based company that served as a central hub for printing and distributing international and Latin American media across North America, Central America, and the Andean countries. Original copies of Libertine books are particularly rare due to the company’s low output and short life.
In 1957 Joe Weiss and Orrie Hitt (using the joint pseudonym “Charles Verne”) co-authored The Wheel of Passion, a carnival sleaze novel with a “girl-inherits-a-carnival-and-becomes-a-stripper-to-help-the-family-business” plotline. Over the course of the next decade, Hitt published four more carnival sleaze novels (Carnival Girl [1959], Carnival Honey [1961], Carnival Sin [1962], and The Sex Pros [1967]) each of which was a minor variant of The Wheel of Passion. Aside from character name changes, Hitt reworked the same plot lines and general themes from book to book with varying success. Carny Freak-Out represents Weiss’ only known reworking of The Wheel of Passion. He simplifies the narrative considerably and dials up the sexual content making it the most explicit and shockingly transgressive of all of the variants. It is prefaced by a telling quote from famed French novelist Emile Zola: “The greatest rogues pretend to the most rigid moral principles. Behind their grand-sounding words, what perverted minds they have. Women, full of infatuation for the ideal, affecting the utmost refinements of delicacy, fall at each step into the pitfall of adultery!”
Carny Freak-Out opens on the side-show of Weston Shows Troupe No. 4. Brutal ringmaster Walt Cobalt whips performer Isabel Craine and makes her engage in graphically described sexual intercourse with a grizzly bear in a special performance for a crowd of customers. It is a painful, shocking, degrading and exhilarating experience for Isabel who passes out. Afterwards, Cobalt summons Isabel to a closed tent where she has to engage in even more depraved, unspecified sexual activities with the grizzly bear. This show is for the private enjoyment of the ringmaster only and as a way of punishing Isabel for fooling around with owner Bob Weston, thereby disrupting carnival operations.
Weston has sheltered his daughter Sheila, a gorgeous busty blonde, from the sideshow life. Sheila is torn; wealthy hunk Dwight Moran wants to marry her, but she’s not sure. She doesn’t love him, but he does have a lot of money. Walt Cobalt telephones Sheila to arrange a meeting. Dwight shows up at the Weston household; he and Sheila discuss their future together. Ignoring the front door chime (Walt has arrived), they adjourn to an upstairs bedroom to make love. Sheila performs a striptease for Dwight. Rather than leading to intercourse, a furiously masturbating Dwight hoses Sheila down with a torrent of ejaculate that tastes like “rotten, moldy cheese.” Sheila is forced to masturbate for her own satisfaction; Dwight promises to give her a good screwing next time.
The following morning Walt Cobalt returns to the Weston household and meets with Sheila. Her father Bob is AWOL – traveling and partying with a much younger carny dancer, Isabel Craine. Meanwhile, his carnival business (multiple independent touring shows) is failing, and changes need to be made immediately. Sheila and Walt agree to meet again later that night to discuss possible solutions. Sheila and Dwight have another sexual encounter. The intercourse is unsatisfying for Sheila who wonders if Walt would be a better lover.
At their second meeting Walt describes in great detail the many problems with the Weston carnival operations. The bottom line is that her father’s business is nearly bankrupt. Walt’s criticism of her father’s sexual habits leads into a discussion of Sheila’s sex life. Walt suggests that they have sex; Sheila demurs saying that her pussy is worn out from her encounter with Dwight earlier in the day. Walt laughs it off and makes Sheila get a jar of cold cream so he can screw her in the ass. Sheila is shocked by the size of Walt’s massive tool, which inflicts on her overwhelming waves of pain and pleasure as he pummels her backside. Walt unleashes a seemingly inexhaustible flood of ejaculate. Walt backs out of Sheila, and she defecates mound after mound of feces all over the floor.
Walt and Sheila clean themselves up and resume their discussion concerning the carnival’s dire finances. Walt says that $5,000 is needed to correct the situation. Sheila volunteers to hock some diamond rings and her mink coat – that should bring in a few thousand at least for continued operations. She authorizes Walt to change the carnival route to better paying venues and also informs him that she’ll be joining them. It’s time she took an interest in the family business.
The next day Sheila pawns her mink and gems netting $1,500. She calls Walt’s hotel room, and the phone is answered by Wendy Blake. Walt has returned to the carnival but has left his car behind so the ladies can catch up with the carnival once Sheila has closed out her affairs. From their brief conversation, Sheila is convinced that Wendy is a “lezzie.” Wendy reminds Sheila of Connie Ryan, a lesbian roommate that she had a sexual affair with while attending a finishing school. It was lovely at first with Sheila floated to heretofore unknown realms of pleasure through cunnilingus and scissoring. It all ended abruptly though when Connie began near-cannibalistic attacks upon Sheila’s genitals.
Sheila sells her Chrysler Imperial convertible netting another $4,000. She muses again about marrying Dwight. While he offers financial security, he just can’t please her in bed. The die is cast; she will join the carnival and make a new life for herself. Sheila joins Wendy Blake, a large breasted, redhead carnival dancer, at the Howard Hotel. Wendy opines that one of the carnival’s problems is that the dancers are not allowed to strip down completely nude. Sheila and Wendy decide to take a bath together, where they quickly lose all control and sexually pleasure each other. Sheila is overcome with emotion and declares her love for Wendy, who reciprocates the words of endearment. Thoughts of Walt Cobalt still lurk around the edges of Sheila’s mind.
Sheila and Wendy catch up with the carnival. Their lesbian tryst deepens with each passing day, but part of Sheila misses being pounded by a nice big set of male equipment. While Wendy says that she can’t buy a dildo until they reach a big city, she claims that an unripe banana will do in a pinch. During a break between shows, the two women grind a banana into pulp while using it as a substitute double-headed dildo. As they lay exhausted in bed, they are jolted out of their post-orgasmic reverie by Walt Cobalt’s harsh laughter. He savagely beats Wendy with his whip as punishment for her corrupting “innocent” Sheila with the disease of lesbianism. Walt then tells Wendy that he is going to screw her in the ass without lubricant to prove that she is no man and to cure her of lesbianism. Wendy is unable to escape from the powerful ringmaster who anally rapes her. After a colossal orgasm, Walt pulls his feces-smeared organ out of Wendy and mockingly observes, “I said you were full of shit.”
In the aftermath, Sheila sobs and realizes that she’s a disgusting, shameful lesbian. What would her father think? Sheila recalls the time her father caught her in sexual play with other youths and beat her naked bottom with a hairbrush; she liked it. Walt and Sheila argue about his mistreatment of Wendy. Sheila makes it clear she’s an adult and that Walt has no say in what she does. He concedes the point and Sheila immediately begs him to screw her pussy. She needs it badly! They both have incredible orgasms. Sheila concludes that fucking is better than fighting.
Walt and Sheila discuss who will run the Carny Swingers girl show now that Wendy has been fired as manager. Sheila volunteers, but Walt says that she doesn’t have enough carny experience yet. The discussion reminds him that he’s neglected to give Sheila the spanking she deserves for her lesbian escapades. She vainly tries to fend off Walt, but he wallops her bare bottom over and over with his hand. Partway through the abuse, the pain turns into intense pleasure. She recalls the spanking her father gave her many years ago. Sheila had enjoyed that too and so wanted to fondle her father’s penis back then. Sheila begs Walt to spank her harder. He’s too exhausted for that so they finish off with doggy-style intercourse.
A narrative section ensues on the ebb and flow of life in the carnival as it travels through several states. The Carny Swingers show does good business with wild performances. Sheila is becoming an experienced barker luring customers into the show tent. Walt and Sheila continue their spanking and intercourse relationship. All is going well with Weston Shows Troupe No. 4 until her father Bob and Isabel Craine suddenly reappear without warning. Bob Weston expresses his disapproval of Sheila’s actions but then lets the matter drop. There are bigger fish to fry as the “happy wanderers” have brought bad luck on their heels. Within a week Walt and the entire girlie show are jailed for participating in lewd performances, prostitution, and corrupting minors. Bob takes off again to look after his other operations, which are nearly bankrupt, while leaving Isabel in charge of Troupe No. 2.
Unable to hire replacements, Isabel and Sheila are forced to restart the girlie show with themselves as the dancers. Sheila is the barker out front drawing in the crowds before ducking backstage to transformer herself into dancer “Joy Hump.” Isabel stars as “Pussy-Willow” doing her “Wild Cherry Dance.” The many men dissatisfied by the lack of nudity in the show gladly pay extra money to access the private “blow-off” tent where they can kiss and stroke the dancers’ nude bodies. Sheila gets aroused, loses control, and engages in mutual oral sex with a young rube before the assembled men. The crowd cheers them on as Sheila revels in the rube’s cock that smells and tastes like Limburger cheese.
The rube, a fairly well-off farmer named Zeke Manners, returns several nights in a row. Sheila and Zeke begin dating and he soon proposes marriage to her. Sheila reviews her options: Dwight Moran (rich, handsome, in love with her, but not manly enough), Walt Cobalt (manly, but too much of a brute), Zeke (handsome and well off enough, but how manly?). Zeke answers that question by warning Sheila that he believes in spanking recalcitrant and misbehaving women. While it’s music to Sheila’s ears, she tells him that she needs a demonstration of his spanking prowess. Zeke spanks the daylight out of her and then they engage in sexual intercourse. They enjoy a series of simultaneous orgasms. For the first time in her life Sheila feels she is an integral part of Mother Nature. For the first time in her life, she feels like a real and complete woman.
Zeke and Sheila
get engaged and set a near-term wedding date. Walt and the dancers are released
from jail. When Walt hears of all the latest developments with the troupe, he
is beside himself with anger at Isabel. He chases her down and whips her
savagely. He unleashes the grizzly bear on her again before anally and
vaginally raping her himself. Isabel complains about this abuse to Sheila who
isn’t buying a word of it. It’s clear that Isabel loved what happened. Sheila
doesn’t know whether to pity Isabel or envy her. Apparently, only men can live
at peace with themselves.
Carnival content (1/5) Sexual content (5/5) Sexual explicitness (4/5) Writing quality (2/5)
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