Ann Bannon Trilogy Lesbian Romance Classic Fiction Odd Girl Out, Woman in Shadows, I am Woman

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Home > GREAT READS > Gender and Diversity >

Ann Bannon Trilogy Lesbian Romance Classic Fiction Odd Girl Out, Woman in Shadows, I am Woman

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Our Price: $13.95

Condition: See product description
Make/Author/Artist: Ann Bannon
Details: Soft cover

Quantity in Stock: 1

Product Code: ODDFBAN

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Description

Odd Girl Out was published by Gold Medal Books in 1957. The plot involves a lesbian relationship between two sorority sisters in a fictional sorority at a fictional midwestern university. As was custom with pulp fiction novels, neither the cover art nor the title was under the control of the author. Both were approved by the publisher in order to be as suggestive and lurid as possible. The characters in Odd Girl Out were Laura, the younger and more naive pledge who becomes infatuated with Beth, a more experienced and charismatic leader in the sorority.

Bannon followed up Odd Girl Out with I Am A Woman (In Love With A Woman Why Must Society Reject Me?) in 1959. I Am A Woman (the working and common title) joined Laura after her affair with Beth as she found herself in New York City's Greenwich Village, navigating new experiences such as a new job, a new apartment, a beautiful new roommate named Marcie, a new closeted gay friend named Jack, and a fascinating new character, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the description of a quintessential and thoroughly butch lesbian. Beebo was smart, handsome, chivalrous, and virile. Laura's conflict involved choosing between Beebo, straight-and-smarter- (and more calculating) -than-she-looks Marcie, and a rocky relationship with her father. The resolution to I Am A Woman completely flouted the trends of miserable lesbian fiction endings, which made Ann Bannon a hero to lesbians and bisexual women across the nation.

Following I Am A Woman, Bannon's third book reflected the conflicts she was experiencing in her own marriage. Women In The Shadows, also in 1959, proved very unpopular with Bannon's readers. Once more we find Laura and Beebo in a very rocky relationship worsened by alcohol, jealousy, and affairs. It was a complex book even for pulp fiction that blurred lines between heroines and villains. Laura ends up marrying her best friend Jack, who is also gay, and Bannon illustrated the mind-boggling details of the relationships of people who were gay in the 1950s and the lengths they went to in order to "pass" as heterosexual and live some semblance of what was considered a normal life at the time.

CONDITION: All soft cover, 1980s printings, light to moderate use.