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Beebo Brinker #1-5
The Beebo Brinker Omnibus: Ann Bannon's Pulp Classics
Designated the "queen of lesbian pulp fiction" for authoring five landmark novels, 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, Beebo Brinker is an astounding and engaging read.
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, Beebo Brinker is an astounding and engaging read.
880 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2015
32 people are currently reading
258 people want to read
About the author
Ann Bannon
23 books169 followersAnn Bannon (pseudonym of Ann Weldy) is an American author and academic. She is known for her lesbian pulp novels, which comprise The Beebo Brinker Chronicles and earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction."
Bannon was featured in the documentaries Before Stonewall (1984) and Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (1992)
Bannon was featured in the documentaries Before Stonewall (1984) and Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (1992)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 1, 2021
Keeping in mind the year(s) the books were released, there are many progressive themes around the stories. The first books of the series "Beebo Brinker" and "Odd Girl Out" still hold up nowadays. Both books showed us the struggles and obstacles of the female protagonists who weren't able to live as who they were. I especially like the open-ending of "Odd Girl Out" because it leaves the reader with the idea that the protagonist, despite everything, will survive and live as wholesome as she can. This unfortunately changes in the following books, which are more miserable and instead of hopefulness, you leave with a sense of dread. The decision behind that dreadful feeling is explained on the epilogue wrote by Ann Bannon though. Nevertheless, I suggest that you read the rest of the series with precaution. Be aware of depictions of sexual abuse, domestic violence and animal abuse.
October 15, 2023
I found Ann Bannon when I was a baby lesbian in my early 20s. There were no Beebo chronicles. You had to find them by the piece. Later, I wanted to find them again and luckily, Amazon had me covered. Please do yourself a favor and read these straight through. You will carry these characters for the rest of your life.
April 18, 2022
¡Terminada la saga de Beebo Brinker!
Los 5 libros han sido geniales y el último ha sido la historia de Beebo Brinker, que entiendo que era el personaje favorito de la escritora.
Le recomiendo la saga a todo el mundo que le interese mínimamente la cultura queer.
Le doy: 100 arcoíris 🌈 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
#leyendofuerte
Los 5 libros han sido geniales y el último ha sido la historia de Beebo Brinker, que entiendo que era el personaje favorito de la escritora.
Le recomiendo la saga a todo el mundo que le interese mínimamente la cultura queer.
Le doy: 100 arcoíris 🌈 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
#leyendofuerte
August 29, 2024
I am rereading Woman in the Shadow in this collection. I highly recommend this book in the omnibus for early lesbian/butch gay men romance in Greenwich Village. Compare to James Baldwin.
March 9, 2024
It’s pulp.
1950s pulp.
1950s pulp written by a closeted 22-year-old housewife.
By today’s standards, one could certainly pick it apart and find flaws. It’s almost a caricature of what lesbian life must have been like back in the day. But with millions of copies printed, this series of five books was a lifeline in its era, helping lesbian women find hope to survive. As such, it serves as an enlightening window into its historical time and place.
I initially read a few of these books years ago. But it was interesting to read all five books in chronological sequence, and in particular the in-depth commentary by the author, the pseudonymous Ann Bannon. The authors explains that she created the novels as a way of surviving a difficult heterosexual marriage, doing occasional “fieldwork” in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village to learn more about the lesbian world. She eventually stopped writing, and did not even realize the impact of her work, which is now taught in university courses.
I found it especially interesting to witness the evolution of Bannon’s emotional life as revealed in the overarching feelings evoked from novel to novel. Odd Girl Out (which by the way was the second best-selling novel of 1957!) is a nuanced exploration of same-sex desire and the limited choices facing young women in the pre-Stonewall era. Women in the Shadows, published two years later, is depressing in its casual brutality and hopelessness. Finally, Beebo Brinker (1962) is downright fantasy-esque in its grandiose portrayal of the 18-year-old butch super-stud arriving in the big city and causing hearts to swoon.
“Big, bold, handsome, the quintessential 1950s buccaneer butch, she was a heller and I adored her,” writes Bannon in an introductory section. “When Beebo was at her buccaneer best, I was infatuated with her myself. When she was at her destructive worst, I was using her as a dumping ground for my own frustrations. She was tough and could take it, and made my life better and my spirit stronger by shouldering the troubles I couldn’t resolve. But it resulted in giving her a dark side I now wish I could soften.”
Bannon worked hard to understand the world she was writing about, but as a married heterosexual wife and mother, she remained a cultural outsider despite her best efforts. Quoting again from one of her introductory sections:
I had been reading everything I could get my hands on in the two years or so between Odd Girl Out and I Am a Woman, trying to encompass the whole wonderful, alarming, irresistible idea of women together. I had learned the word lesbian. I had learned about butches and femmes. In travel books, I had discovered that mythical hamlet, Manhattan’s own Brigadoon, Greenwich Village. I was thoroughly enchanted…. [But} there are times when I wish I had done enough living back then, when I was doing so much writing, to justify my grand generalizations, my cocksure assertions, my pronouncements on life and love…. Perusing my novels again was a trip in a time machine, an exercise both embarrassing and exhilarating. How very young I was! How deep those feelings ran! And how startlingly sparse was my worldly knowledge.
I recommend this omnibus to anyone who wants to travel seven decades back in time. It’s amazing how well the novels hold up.
1950s pulp.
1950s pulp written by a closeted 22-year-old housewife.
By today’s standards, one could certainly pick it apart and find flaws. It’s almost a caricature of what lesbian life must have been like back in the day. But with millions of copies printed, this series of five books was a lifeline in its era, helping lesbian women find hope to survive. As such, it serves as an enlightening window into its historical time and place.
I initially read a few of these books years ago. But it was interesting to read all five books in chronological sequence, and in particular the in-depth commentary by the author, the pseudonymous Ann Bannon. The authors explains that she created the novels as a way of surviving a difficult heterosexual marriage, doing occasional “fieldwork” in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village to learn more about the lesbian world. She eventually stopped writing, and did not even realize the impact of her work, which is now taught in university courses.
I found it especially interesting to witness the evolution of Bannon’s emotional life as revealed in the overarching feelings evoked from novel to novel. Odd Girl Out (which by the way was the second best-selling novel of 1957!) is a nuanced exploration of same-sex desire and the limited choices facing young women in the pre-Stonewall era. Women in the Shadows, published two years later, is depressing in its casual brutality and hopelessness. Finally, Beebo Brinker (1962) is downright fantasy-esque in its grandiose portrayal of the 18-year-old butch super-stud arriving in the big city and causing hearts to swoon.
“Big, bold, handsome, the quintessential 1950s buccaneer butch, she was a heller and I adored her,” writes Bannon in an introductory section. “When Beebo was at her buccaneer best, I was infatuated with her myself. When she was at her destructive worst, I was using her as a dumping ground for my own frustrations. She was tough and could take it, and made my life better and my spirit stronger by shouldering the troubles I couldn’t resolve. But it resulted in giving her a dark side I now wish I could soften.”
Bannon worked hard to understand the world she was writing about, but as a married heterosexual wife and mother, she remained a cultural outsider despite her best efforts. Quoting again from one of her introductory sections:
I had been reading everything I could get my hands on in the two years or so between Odd Girl Out and I Am a Woman, trying to encompass the whole wonderful, alarming, irresistible idea of women together. I had learned the word lesbian. I had learned about butches and femmes. In travel books, I had discovered that mythical hamlet, Manhattan’s own Brigadoon, Greenwich Village. I was thoroughly enchanted…. [But} there are times when I wish I had done enough living back then, when I was doing so much writing, to justify my grand generalizations, my cocksure assertions, my pronouncements on life and love…. Perusing my novels again was a trip in a time machine, an exercise both embarrassing and exhilarating. How very young I was! How deep those feelings ran! And how startlingly sparse was my worldly knowledge.
I recommend this omnibus to anyone who wants to travel seven decades back in time. It’s amazing how well the novels hold up.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews