Valerie Taylor (1) (1913–1997)

The original edition of A World Without Men leaves a lot to be desired, but the book itself is not nearly as bad as the cover would suggest. Despite the tawdriness and ambivalence of its appearance, A World Without Men is actually sleaze-free and much more positively slanted than other lesfic of its time.

While plenty of despair abounds, the sadness comes from each woman's tragic past and not that they both happen to be gay. Above-average writing and some nicely tender moments keep this heads above the rest. This is often a warm love story, bleak though it may be, and not the sensationalistic stuff of its fellow 1960s counterparts.

One of my favorite passages:

"The world is full of unhappy people. Kate's throat ached to think of them. People who lie in bed at night, fretting about their bills and adding up the hopeless totals...people who can't love because their hearts are dried up like last year's seapods...all the women in rented rooms with their hearts running with love and nobody to give it to."

Valerie Taylor wrote several other books in this genre, one of which a character from here appears (see Return to Lesbos.)… (més)

Return To Lesbos by Valerie Taylor, though a sequel to Stranger To Lesbos, is a completely different read. I didn't particularly like the main character, Frances, in the first book and I don't particularly like her in the beginning of the second. She doesn't seem to be seeking love out so much as a place where she'll find people like herself. At first her desperation reeks of "anyone will do." That, however, soon turns out (thankfully!) not to be the case.

Though I still don't much care for Frances when Stranger begins, I understand what she is going through. She has tried so hard not to be gay, but she is...that's just who she is. She's not happy in her marriage at all and she desperately wants to meet someone like she is. Her friend Kay tells her there is always someone for anyone who wants to fall in love, but that's often such a lie.

It turns out she DOES meet someone, in a bookstore of all places. She likes Erika almost immediately, but Erika has been hurt badly. Having lost her girlfriend to a car accident and been exposed to horrific war crimes, her life experiences have pretty much shut her down, made her immune to trying again with love.

Some people may wonder: why is lesbian pulp fiction being reprinted these days? It's a given it wouldn't make any sense to homophobic people, but I'm not sure even other gay people would understand.

"It's 2013," they'd say. "Why do you need to read books over fifty years old that speak to women who lived (or thought out) their lives in secret? You can be out and open now."

Those who live in small communities and/or with very, very conservative families, might as well be living 50 years ago. It's not the modern day woman loves woman romances that speak to someone lost and alone, but the books where "the love that dares not speak its name" is suppressed like nothing's ever been suppressed before.

And when you have almost half the country and certainly a significantly higher part of the world still believing homosexuality is a sin, with respected people like Dr. Ben Carson comparing gay people to people who engage in bestiality, the alienated gay or lesbian might need those books even more.

There are so many parts in the sequel that are touching and vulnerable, that make Frances a human, not a stock figure: "Back in bed she folded the sheet tightly across her chest to give herself a feeling of being held." Frances _really_ has tried to make her marriage work, but she's just going through the motions and it's more than she can bear.

When I finished reading Return To Lesbos it was very late at night, a time when things can hit you harder or seem bigger than they really are, but I still don't think that's why this book got to me so much. I can't believe it has a happy ending (minus Frances' husband hitting her when she tells him she can no longer be married to him) and how sweet it is. Erika is just precious (the good kind of precious) and I love how her inability to trust others brings out a kind, very protective side to Frances, that will redeem her in the eyes of anyone who read the first book and had trouble connecting with her.

Frances changes from it being all about her to being someone who loves someone else without thought for herself. It makes the love scenes touching and sincere and pokes a huge bubble in the so-called luridness of most pulp fiction covers back then.

What I also like a lot about yesterday's lesbian pulps (that is seriously lacking in today's modern lesfic) is discretion. Less is more is always sexier in a love scene and lends an air of privacy to what is a private act. Add that discretion to a happy ending (or at least what would have been a happy ending back then) and you get a book that still deserves to be read today.
… (més)

Ripening is the conclusion of the Erika Frohmann series, which started with Stranger on Lesbos (if you want to go by year published) or Journey to Fulfillment (if you go chronologically speaking). Spanning over twenty years in the lives of Erika and Frances, the book shows how they go from a couple with practically nothing of their own to building a life together, living through infidelity (say it isn't so Frances!!), Frances' estranged son's political career, Frances' granddaughter's own sexuality, monetary hardships, home ownership, discrimination, and of course the changing times.

I like Erika and Frances' relationship; it really seems genuine, and both of the characters are likable ,even when Frances cheats on Erika, which is never really adequately addressed in the book, but I don't think that was the point of the one dalliance. I didn't care so much for Erika and Kate, and I was rather okay with her being written off, because I think Erika and Frances are much better for one another. And it's interesting to see how things have changed since even the 1980s in terms of gay rights.

The author can tell a good story; there are some point of view shifts mid-paragraph that I could live without in the book, but it doesn't detract, at least much, from the story itself. I'm kind of sorry to see Erika and Frances go; I've read all of the books in the series now, and besides Beebo and Laura (who I still think belonged together!), this is my second fictional lesbian couple (back in the late 1990s, when I first discovered gay novels - yes, I was that sheltered) that I read that was treated well in the books that spanned their relationship.… (més)

SPOILER ALERTS FOR "STRANGER ON LESBOS" AND "A WORLD WITHOUT MEN"

After returning to her husband at the end of "Stranger on Lesbos," Frances Ollenfield has been trying to be a good wife for over a year. She's incredibly lonely and restless, however, and she knows that her affair with Bake wasn't an aberration (like her husband believes), but that she's a lesbian. She meets Erika Frohmann in a used bookstore, and Frances is filled with longing for the other woman.

Meanwhile, Erika, the strong concentration camp survivor from "A World Without Men," has been completely crushed by life. Her partner, Kate (also from "A World Without Men"), died unexpectedly in a car accident, and Erika is finding it hard to continue living. She's almost completely withdrawn from life, but Frances is determined to lure her back.

Altogether, I really liked this book. There are some overly dramatic parts, but I love that it's not some "lesbians are depraved sex perverts" book. There are several characters in the book sympathetic to gay people. And I really do like the characters of both Frances and Erika. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.… (més)