Book Review! Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon
If you are not familiar with Ann Bannon (Ann Weldy), she is the grande dame of Lesbian Pulp. Beebo Brinker was written in 1962, at a time when queerness was rarely talked about, and when it was there were inevitably awful consequences (usually death) to the poor “afflicted” souls. Beebo Brinker is the 5th book in a series, though I didn’t even realize this until now and I didn’t really feel like i missed anything by not reading the previous ones. Also, seeing as Beebo basically “comes out” publicly in this novel I can’t imagine what the other novels cover (though I will probably read them at some point). Anyway, once I got past the ridiculous name (maybe I could find out why she has that silly name in those books? That would maybe be worth it) I enjoyed reading this book. It is pulp, and was a breeze of a novel, but it is no romance novel (though there are some romantic subplots). It was really interesting to see the way that queerness was talked about back then. For example, the gay man that took Beebo in didn’t really openly come out to her until they knew each other for weeks. There’s also casual bi-phobia, the women that sleep with men are all evil/super fucked up, but they are also the most interesting characters so I will let it slide. No one dies in Beebo Brinker, which is a good thing, and different from most of the gay books of the era from what I’ve heard. At it’s core Beebo Brinker is a fish out of water novel about a small town girl moving to New York City and internally torturing herself with, and finally coming to terms with her sexuality. It’s a slightly depressing romp, but doesn’t end in outright tragedy so I think it is still fun as a beach read that can help (maybe) give some of us queers a sense of a small (white) part of our history, and for that it is worth the read.