8/3/20

Libros de anticuario del Archivo de la Biblioteca EN VENTA

Libros de anticuario del Archivo de la Biblioteca

EN VENTA

Consultas UNICAMENTE: bibliotecalgttb@gmail.com

Men - The Variety And Meaning Of Their Sexual Experience

Edited by A. M. Krich

Introduction by Margaret Mead

First Edition

The Divided Path the story of a homosexual

Kent, Nial [pseudonym of William Leroy Thomas]

Pyramid Books, New York, 1951. Paperback.

Without the psychological depth or seriousness of Gore Vidal's The City and The Pillar, this explores the tabooed, twilight world of the homosexual in explicit detail and for the vicarious, provides a fairly sensational, sexological account

We Too Are Drifting By Gale Wilhelm - The Story Of A Lesbian

The literary reputation of Gale Wilhelm (1908-1991) rests on her two short novels about lesbians, We Too Are Drifting and Torchlight to Valhalla (1938). These books, as well as No Letters for the Dead (1936), received favorable reviews and seemed to herald the arrival of a major talent. But her last three novels, Bring Home the Bride (1940), The Time Between (1942) and Never Let Me Go (1945), abandoned lesbian themes and drew little appreciation among critics. She published nothing after 1945. Even so, her output of six novels puts her among the most prolific of California’s female non-genre writers.

We Too Are Drifting by Gale Wilhelm. Random House (1935), 206 pp.

Nothing seems able to lift the spirits of thirty-year-old engraver Jan Morale. Her work proceeds only intermittently. Her girlfriend, beautiful, possessive and persistent Madelin Souchée, provides just a few pleasurable moments in a relationship that has lost its spark. While her best friend, the sculptor Kletkin, remains supportive, the rest of the San Francisco art scene leaves her cold. Even her grim attic apartment is getting her down. Then she meets Victoria Connerly, a twenty-year-old former art student who is a big fan of Jan’s work. They hit it off immediately. Pretty and vivacious, Victoria might be able to bring some joy into Jan’s life.

This book is best known for its frank and unsensational treatment of lesbian relationships. They are, at least among the artistic crowd that Wilhelm depicts, not much different from those experienced by straight women. The book goes further, however. The author enhances her treatment of the subject with a pitch-perfect description of someone suffering from chronic depression. Jan can’t accept praise, tolerate the company of her acquaintances or open up to anyone. She’s trapped in a world of almost unrelenting bleakness. Wilhelm’s unusual writing style helps to capture Jan’s feelings. The author uses short and simple words, almost as if she lacked the energy to show off her vocabulary. And she doesn’t set off dialog with quotation marks, giving the narrative an unemphasized, stream-of-consciousness feel (even though it’s in the third person). Although not as daring as it was seventy-five years ago, the book deserves a wide modern audience.