Beebo Brinker - Softcover

Bannon, Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573441252 ISBN 13: 9781573441254

Publisher: Cleis Press, 2001

Synopsis

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. 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.

With Beebo Brinker, Bannon introduces the title character, a butch 17-year-old farm girl newly arrived in New York after she is driven from her Wisconsin home town for wearing drag to the State Fair. Befriended by the gay Jack Mann, a father-figure with a weakness for runaways, Beebo sets out to find love. 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.

Overwhelmed with her discovery, Beebo is infatuated in turn with the vixen Mona Petry, the sweet femme Paula Ash, and the famous actress Venus Bogardus. Sexy, dangerous, and often touching, Beebo Brinker's search for love takes her from password-protected 1950s lesbian bars to the glamour and ritz of Hollywood and back. Chronicling the reality of 1950s lesbian life through Ann Bannon's dreamy butch, Beebo Brinker is an astounding and engaging read.

About this title

Review:

When housewife Ann Bannon brought her first novel to a paperback publisher in the mid-1950s, the publisher skimmed the manuscript and told her to scrap everything but the college love affair between two women. "There's your real story," he said as she blushed, ashamed that her secret obsession had been so obvious to him. The resulting novel was Odd Girl Out, one of the bestselling paperbacks of the period, and perhaps the best (and least depressing) example of lesbian pulp fiction, a genre that flourished from the end of the Second World War until the changing laws on censorship made much seamier material commonplace, and the growing gay rights movement brought the gay life out of the shadows. Although the last of a four-book series, Beebo Brinker introduces Bannon's central character, a young, handsome butch who arrives in New York scared and innocent (and wearing a dress) but soon has the femmes of Greenwich Village in the palm of her hand. Essential reading for anyone interesting in lesbian herstory; a period piece (and a welcome reprint) that has worn remarkably well.--Regina Marler

From the Publisher:

Ann Bannon is the author of the classic lesbian pulp novels Odd Girl Out (forthcoming from Cleis Press, October 2001), Women in the Shadows (1959), I Am a Woman (1959) Journey to a Woman (1960), The Marriage (1960) and Beebo Brinker (1962).

Taking a pseudonym in the interest of privacy, Bannon wrote her first book, Odd Girl Out, as a coming of age novel that involved love between college sorority sisters. When an editor singled-out the school-girl romance as her story's most compelling feature, the book was re-written for a lesbian pulp fiction audience. Unlike most pulps, however, Bannon broke with tradition by avoiding sensationalistic plots in favor of emotionally engaged character development.

Despite her now legendary status among lesbian and gay readers, she surprisingly had no "emotional or intellectual connection" to lesbianism prior to the publication of her first book. "My story is a strange one, with all the apparent conventionality," Bannon recalls. "Everyone in my daily life thought I was just a very nice, young conventional wife and mother. They really didn't know what was going on in my head or my emotions and that was sort of how I got away with it."

Odd Girl Out enjoyed tremendous success, inspiring other ground-breaking works, most notably Beebo Brinker. Her sensitive renderings of sexuality also won Bannon a devoted following among isolated lesbians everywhere. "I got nice letters from a lot of really lovely women, and women who were hurting a lot, and women all over the country," Bannon remarks. "So many saying, 'Thank God I finally got connected with somebody who really knows what this is about.' "

The character of Beebo is among the most-loved lesbians ever to appear in gay and lesbian fiction. "I never met Beebo in the flesh, but she was part of my daydreams from a very early time," Bannon says of her ultra-butch protagonist. Although Beebo Brinker is Bannon's last published novel, the events in the story actually occur before those of Odd Girl Out. Thus the book is the first in the new Lesbian Pulp Fiction series, a line of lesbian pulps from Cleis Press that offer rare, first-hand looks into the pre-Stonewall era. As one reviewer observes, "Aside from being light, fun reading, the Beebo Brinker series gives us a glimpse of our past, along with a sense of where we came from and how far we've gotten."

About this edition

• Publisher: Cleis Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1573441252
• ISBN 13: 9781573441254
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208