Introduction
"Have One On Me" by Ashton Douglass was originally published in Paris, where its absolute frankness about subject matter rarely touched on in any novel got it promptly banned by the French authorities. The copies which survived censorship were quickly reprinted and had an enormous underground circulation among collectors of the "avant garde" erotic novel both in London, Paris and elsewhere on the Continent. Even case-hardened connoisseurs of erotica were startled by the unusually frank treatment of previously taboo subject matter which was so daringly presented by the author.
No matter how bizarre, oversexed and abnormal the characters so vividly presented in this story may seem, the current sexual revolution has made us realize that the happenings so realistically presented here are actually not as far out as one might think. The headlines in the daily papers will immediately bear out this observation for the interested reader.
However, even the most blase reader will agree that such open treatment of incest in its fullest details, prostitution, sodomy, lesbi anism and perversion has never been seen between the covers of a book. The secret vices and complete disintegration of what appears to be a normal, middle-class family is portrayed with such reality that we feel that the author is revealing his own family skeletons in the closet.
The brilliant psychoanalyst, Alfred Adler, has made the following most pertinent observation:
"The young writer is frequently a motherfixated individual with strong subconscious homosexual tendencies. His first novel is likely to be the frankest and most realistic of his works. It represents the secret outpourings of his unconscious neuroses, his guilty fixations flood onto the paper as if by this act he can free himself of the tormenting burden he has been carrying since childhood. Sometimes this so-called 1 'literary catharsis" will work and the individual sees his masochistic mental gyrations more objectively. More often the neurotic pattern of perverse behavior is so ingrained that the same pattern of psychic behavior is simply repeated in a different environment.
The sexually sick individual always requires some analytic help. The insight required for a cure or remission of most perverse symptoms can rarely be arrived at by the patient alone."
The reader will have to decide for himself what the ultimate destiny of the central char acter of "Have One On Me" is apt to be. But, the events leading up to the dramatic finale will keep him spellbound.
Continental Classics once again brings to the reading public a novel of compelling, modern interest. Because of the subject matter, it is recommended only for serious students of psychology or sociology and the mature general reader.
Allan Saunders, MA. New York City, January 1968
Archive Note: The truly amazing number of misspellings in the original pocketbook are faithfully reproduced in this text. No attempt whatsoever has been made to correct the misspelled or misused words.