Why did the Irish censors ignore this spectacularly rude book? And why is a novel about a sex-obsessed Jewish man so important in the history of censorship in Australia?
S3 E9 Compulsive wanking: Roth ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ (1969)
S3 E7 Queer, with cocktails: Moore, ‘Chocolates for Breakfast’ (1956)
A candid, haunting novel about the coming-of-age of a teenage girl. Full of decadent sexuality that would have given the censors a fit of the vapours.
S3 E4 Perverty Stuff: Salinger, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ (1951)
Holden Caulfield’s swearing and sex talk has offended many since 1951. This book is now a modern classic but why is a story of a poor little rich kid still read and enjoyed today?
S3 E1 Voluptuous Jazzing: McKay, ‘Home to Harlem’ (1928
A love letter to Harlem and it’s music, this book offended all kinds of people. McKay’s honesty about sex was brave and inflammatory.
S2 E9 Rapey Noir: Keene, ‘Sleep with the Devil’ (1954)
The censor hated Keene’s pulp noir, banning his work many times. This taut thriller was full of violence but it was also a morality tale.
S2 E7 Bestial Behaviour: Endore, ‘The Werewolf of Paris’ (1933)
Endore combined violence and blasphemy in this classic of the werewolf genre. It’s impossible to know whether the radical politics or freaky sex most offended the censor.
S2 E6: Love, not Sex: Wallace, ‘The Chapman Report’ (1960)
America was horrified when the Kinsey report showed women were capable of sexual misbehaviour. Wallace’s book trashed Kinsey but it still too sexy for the Irish censor.
S2 E5: Lesbionic Lit: Highsmith, ‘Carol’ (1952)
Is it a subversive lesbian romance or a psychological thriller? The hetronormative censor saw a dangerous text with a ‘general tendency to deprave’.
S2 E2 Thrusting Ecstasy: Anais Nin, ‘A Spy in the House of Love’ (1954)
If you like florid descriptions of sex spiced with psychoanalysis, this is the book for you. Unfortunately, it is not my kind of book.
S1 E8 Orrie Hitt, ‘Pleasure Ground’ (1961): Babes and Boobs
With a saucy cover showing lots of female flesh, Hitt’s book was never going to be sold in Ireland. But did the text deliver on the smutty promise of the cover art?
