Trailer Tramp - Orrie Hitt

TRAILER TRAMPS, the new triple-decker collection from Stark House, has to have an Orrie Hitt novel in it, of course, and what better one than the similarly named TRAILER TRAMP? Published originally by Beacon Books in 1957, TRAILER TRAMP is Orrie Hitt near the top of his game, although there are some differences in it from his usual books, too.

For one thing, the protagonist of this novel, Joan Baker, isn’t trapped in a hardscrabble existence like many of Hitt’s protagonists. Instead, she’s a smart, hard-working young woman who runs a successful trailer camp established by her parents, who are now taking an extended vacation and have left Joan in charge. So money isn’t a worry as it so often is in a Hitt novel.

Which doesn’t mean that Joan is carefree. She has her personal demons to deal with. She was in love with a young man but after he tried to pressure her into sex and she refused (she’s a virgin), he turned to another girl to get what he wanted. But she still has feelings for the guy, and it doesn’t help when he starts working at the trailer camp.

Then a construction crew putting in a pipeline shows up and the boss of the job, Big Mike Summers, moves his trailer into the camp and Joan is immediately drawn to him. When she gives in to her feelings, she worries that she’s becoming a tramp. (Well, it’s right there in the title, although to be honest, Joan never comes across as particularly trampish.)

Other complications crop up, and although a lot of the book is domestic drama, it becomes a crime yarn as Hitt pulls off several nice twists, leaving the reader unsure of what’s going to happen almost right up to the end of the book.

I know Hitt worked as the manager of a hunting camp, but I don’t recall if he ever had any connection to trailer camps. He must have, because he does a great job with the setting in this book. As in so much of his work, the details of middle-class and lower-class life really have the ring of authenticity. His writing is sharp and the pace moves along at a nice clip. This is fine storytelling.

TRAILER TRAMP is in the top rank of the Orrie Hitt novels I’ve read. Along with TRAILER CAMP WOMAN by Doug Duperrault, it makes this new Stark House collection a solid two-for-two so far. That leaves LOVE CAMP ON WHEELS by Tom Harland, which I’ll be getting to soon. TRAILER TRAMPS is available in both e-book and print editions.