7/2/2023 0 Comments Ann bannon beebo brinker![]() ![]() ![]() Beebo doesn’t even know she’s a lesbian at the beginning of the book, so it’s an interesting view of a butch farm girl’s coming-out story. Being written contemporaneously, it’s also more honest about its confusion than the history books usually are. I’ve read a lot of nonfiction about Greenwich Village, lesbian history, the ebb and flow of “butch” as a thing, but this is the first novel. It’s all tell and no show and not much action, like most pulps, but the writing is surprisingly good. This was the first full novel I had a chance to read. I’ve been studying gay pulp for years, but because of the time constraints in a grad program, I couldn’t stray too far into lesbian pulp once I’d gotten the gist. She never knew what she wanted-until she came to Greenwich Village and found the love that smolders in the shadows of the twilight world. Befriended by the gay Jack Mann, a father-figure with a weakness for runaways, Beebo sets out to find love. With Beebo Brinker, Bannon introduces the title character, a butch 17-year-old farm girl newly arrived in New York. ![]() Unlike many writers of the period, however, Bannon broke through the shame and isolation typically portrayed in lesbian pulps, offering instead women characters who embrace their sexuality against great odds. Designated the “Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction” for authoring five landmark novels beginning in 1957, Ann Bannon’s work defined lesbian fiction for the pre-Stonewall generation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |