Beebo Brinker (Ann Bannon)

[shewhostaples]

I have been aware for a long time that this is one of the great lesbian pulp novels, probably second on the f/f classics reading list after The Well of Loneliness, so when Kobo attempted to flog it to me for less than four quid, I accepted gracefully.

Beebo Brinker is a teenage butch Lesbian (this book was first published in the early sixties, and the capital L still reigns), not that she is prepared to admit this for a good quarter of the book. It covers her arrival in Greenwich Village and her first love affairs, which come hard upon each other's heels.

It's a delightful piece of wish fulfilment: if only I had been brave enough to run away to New York at the age of seventeen, it suggests, I too might have had women falling at my feet, might have had a Hollywood star sweep me up and take me away.

I particularly liked Beebo's friendship with Jack, the gay man who befriends her when she first arrives. I was also taken with the subtle way that Bannon portrays the contrast between Beebo's lack of confidence with the way the outside world assumes the opposite; in fact, her youth and inexperience felt very convincing all round.

I was less impressed with the Evil Bisexual Mona. A trope Of Its Time, I suppose, though I fear it still pops up these days.

Comments

[arnoldmoyoyo]

Thanks for this review! I've read two of Bannon's other books; I Am a Woman and Women in the Shadows, but I haven't read this one yet.