THE HIGH SIDE

After reading BARBARIANS ON BIKES a couple of weeks ago (and posting a very positive review here on my blog), I had an urge to read a vintage motorcycle gang novel, a few of which I happened to have in my collection. I bought them years ago with the intention to get around to reading them "some day". Well, that "some day" came this week.

I grabbed THE HIGH SIDE by Max Ehrlich off of my shelf for my first foray into the world of biker fiction. I bought this book way back when primarily for the Frank Frazetta cover art and it was that art that caused me to pick this book.

THE HIGH SIDE is the story of one Cal McCue, a member of the Los Angeles based Satan's Outlaws, a notorious motorcycle gang full of violent misfits. Cal, a young man with no real purpose in life, is desperate to find a home, some place where he can fit in and be among like minded people who understand him. The only place he finds such comfort and acceptance is in the Outlaws.

Until he meets Marcy, a peace-love-and-understanding hippie chick who sees the tortured soul deep within Cal and falls deeply in love with him. Cal loves Marcy also. She's not like any of the other biker "mamas" and "old ladies" of the gang. But Cal is torn between his affection for Marcy and his loyalty to the gang.

When Marcy becomes pregnant, Cal finds himself on the horns of a moral dilemma. Leave the gang and try to live a life of responsibility and parenthood or bring Marcy into the gang and hope she can adapt to their violent ways.

To make matters even worse, Beautiful Brad, the white-haired, blue-eyed, incredibly charismatic leader of the Outlaws is also deeply in love with Cal, a strong strain of homo-eroticism that runs throughout the novel.

Things come to a head at a weekend orgy at a California lake where Cal, Brad, Marcy and a vengeful cop collide.

Published in 1970, THE HIGH SIDE is a Fawcett Gold Medal original that's part character study, part handbook/primer for biker culture. Author Ehrlich goes into great detail about the rules and rituals of the motorcycle gang. It's an odd mix of loyalty and perversity (golden showers, anyone?) with many scenes in the book easily adapted for the cover or interior illustrations of any men's adventure magazine published that year.

Ehrlich is a decent enough writer and keeps things moving for the novel's 192 pages. Ehrlich's biggest hit was THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD, published in 1974 and made into a film in 1975.

If you want to relive the glory days of Southern California biker gangs, check out THE HIGH SIDE. It's full of lurid sex, brutal violence and a look into a fascinating outsider culture.