What struck me about both these covers is the promiscuous mingling of elegant design and a proudly trashy sensibility. Slinky, showy, and slightly disreputable, they’re out for the same thing, just in different outfits. The Hunger is sort of a loose-fitted, white on white, billowy, bell bottomed thingy, with a black lacquered wooden bead necklace and head scarf – Susan Pleshette’s look (below, left) distinctly comes to mind. Scandal is surely Joan Collins (below, obviously) in her early eighties prime, shoulder pads, saturated purple dress popping aggressively against black hair, black lace decolletage, and her black heart. (The books themselves? Hunger is unreadable, like machetting through a steamy forest of velour plants. Scandal is much better, a comedy of manners, politics and sexual intrigue, recalling the Perfumo affair and Waugh, although without the high points of either.)
