music, books, love and kindness

During the 50s and 60s there were two kinds of lesbian pulp fiction: the ones straight men wrote for other straight men purely for the titillation factor (often portraying the 'dangers' and 'ills' of being gay, as seen during a time very few people tried to understand gays and lesbians) and the ones closeted gay housewives looked to as survival literature (the only thing they had to cling to in a world that rarely discussed 'the love that dare not speak its name.')

Ann Bannon, whose five highly addictive and surprisingly well-written books are so much better than their covers and reputation would have you believe, went for the latter in a frank, sincere and often very touching manner.

As Patricia Highsmith wrote in her afterward to The Price Of Salt (written around the same time as Bannon's books): "Homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing (alone and miserable and shunned ) into a depression equal to hell."

Odd Girl Out and other novels like it may seem terribly out of date in our more enlightened 21st century, but, sadly, for many (especially those women who live in conservative towns or have no one to reach out to who would support their coming out) Ann Bannon's books still have a lot to say, not just about the chills and thrills of being a woman first realizing she likes other women, but about love in general.

Sentences such as these could apply to anyone who has ever been on the cusp of love and been terribly afraid: "And in self-defense Laura tried to build a wall of politeness between them, to admire Beth from far away. There was a vague, strange feeling in the younger that to get close to Beth was to worship her, and to worship her was to get hurt."

After Odd Girl Out, there is: I Am A Woman, Women In The Shadows, Journey To A Woman and Beebo Brinker (actually a prequel even though it was written last.) I bought all five separately through the Kindle store, but I love the idea of all of them coming together in one collection.

No matter what your orientation or beliefs, you may find all five books riveting, not only for their historical context in giving modern readers an idea of just how much has changed in the world of LGBT rights, but also because they do what any good book should: tell a compelling story with characters who jump right off the page. (Journey To A Woman, for instance, has a lot to say about finding yourself and making sure you don't mistake a past you still yearn for as the answer to all your problems.)

There is even, if you wait the series out and find yourself liking characters like Beth and Beebo, a happy ending of sorts...something almost unheard of for lesbians back then and, sometimes, even now.

I wish I could do these books the justice they deserve. Maybe, one day when I've had time to reread them, I can better capture how they can still speak to women decades later...