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= Ann_Bannon =
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Introduction
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Ann Weldy (born September 15, 1932), better known by her pen name Ann
Bannon, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote five
lesbian pulp fiction novels known as 'The Beebo Brinker Chronicles'.
The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has
earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a
young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she
was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured
four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her
eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of
a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she
knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able
to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life,
her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of
lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.
Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals
alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped
writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and
became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and,
as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were
republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society.
They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an
award-winning Off-Broadway production. They are taught in women's and
LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for
pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the
premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and
sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf
of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian".
Early life
======================================================================
Ann Bannon was born Ann Weldy in Joliet, Illinois, in 1932. She was
the only child of her mother's first marriage. Her mother married
again and had a son with her second husband. Her mother married a
third time and had four more sons.
Bannon grew up in nearby Hinsdale with her mother and stepfather, and
had the responsibility of taking care of four siblings due to the
family's financial problems. She took comfort in a vibrant imaginary
life during this time and found solace in writing. Growing up, she was
surrounded by music, particularly jazz, as her family hosted small
recitals for friends and neighbors. One became a character in her
books: a perennial bachelor named Jack who slung jokes and witticisms
at the audiences.
Bannon in 1955, just as 'Odd Girl Out' was being completed
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign she belonged to
Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority where she befriended a beautiful older
sorority sister, "the prettiest I had ever seen", quite popular with
men and with women. Bannon witnessed a younger sorority sister's
unabashed infatuation with the older sister. She recalls it was an
awkward situation, even though the older sorority sister was
"unfailingly gracious" to the younger one. In recognizing the younger
woman's attractions, she began to suspect her own sexuality. She said,
"I saw a lot of it happening and I didn't know what to make of it. I
don't even know how to put it--I was absolutely consumed with it, it
was an extraordinary thing." Another sorority sister was physically
remarkable, very tall--almost 6 ft, with a husky voice and boyish
nickname, that Bannon imagined was a blend of Johnny Weissmuller and
Ingrid Bergman. She recalled entering the communal restroom and seeing
the sister, "both of us in underwear, and experienc(ing) a sort of
electric shock", and trying not to stare at her. In 1954, she
graduated with a degree in French and soon married an engineer
thirteen years older whose job made them relocate frequently.
Bannon was 22 years old when she began writing her first pulp novel.
She was influenced by the only lesbian novels she had read, 'The Well
of Loneliness' by Radclyffe Hall from 1928 and Vin Packer's 'Spring
Fire' from 1952, albeit in two different ways: she was unable to
relate to the dismal tones in Hall's novel, but as a sorority girl was
more familiar with the plot and circumstances of 'Spring Fire'. Bannon
said, "Both books completely obsessed me for the better part of two
years." Although recently married and on her way to having two
children, she found the books struck a chord in her life and
recognized emotions in herself that compelled her to write about them.
In the beginning of her marriage she was left alone quite a lot and
said, "I was kind of desperate to get some of the things that had been
consuming me for a long time down on paper." In 1956, after having
sent her first manuscript to Marijane Meaker (Packer's real name),
Meaker invited her to New York to discuss the manuscript with Meaker's
editor at Gold Medal Books; Bannon said her husband "only let [her] go
because [she'd] discovered that there was a women’s hotel called the
Barbizon.”
Background
============
Paperback books in the United States expanded prominently after World
War II through the marketing strategies of Pocket Books, who began to
distribute publications through newspapers, newsstands, grocery
stores, and bus and train stations. The retail opportunities of
paperback books grew about tenfold with this method. In 1950, rival
company Gold Medal Books published 'Women's Barracks', a fictionalized
account of author Tereska Torrès' experience serving in the Free
French Forces. The book depicts a lesbian relationship the author
witnessed, ending with one of the women committing suicide. It sold
4.5 million copies, and Gold Medal Books' editors were "thrilled". Its
success earned it a mention in the House Select Committee on Current
Pornographic Materials in 1952. Gold Medal Books was a branch of
Fawcett Publications that focused on paperback books which at the time
were printed on very cheap paper, not designed to last for more than a
year, sold for 25 cents in drug stores and other venues all over the
United States and Canada. The books made for cheap, easy reading that
could be discarded at the end of a trip at very little cost to the
customer. Because of the low quality of production, they earned the
name pulp fiction.
Gold Medal Books quickly followed 'Women's Barracks' with 'Spring
Fire', eager to cash in on the unprecedented sales, and it sold almost
copies in 1952. Vin Packer, whose real name is Marijane Meaker, and
Gold Medal Books were overwhelmed with mail from women who identified
with the lesbian characters.
One of the letters was from Bannon, asking for professional assistance
in getting published. On writing to Meaker, she said, "To this day I
have no idea why she responded to me out of the thousands of letters
she was getting at that time. Thank God she did. I was both thrilled
and terrified." Bannon visited Meaker and was introduced to Greenwich
Village, which made a significant impression on Bannon: she called it
"Emerald City, Wonderland, and Brigadoon combined--a place where gay
people could walk the crooked streets hand in hand." Meaker set up a
meeting with Gold Medal Books editor Dick Carroll, who read Bannon's
initial 600-page manuscript. It was a story about the women in her
sorority whom she admired, with a subplot consisting of two sorority
sisters who had fallen in love with each other. Carroll told her to
take it back and focus on the two characters who had an affair. Bannon
claims she went back and told their story, delivered the draft to
Carroll and saw it published without a single word changed. While
raising two young children, Bannon lived in Philadelphia and took
trips into New York City to visit Greenwich Village and stayed with
friends. She said of the women she saw in Greenwich Village, "I wanted
to be one of them, to speak to other women, if only in print. And so I
made a beginning--and that beginning was the story that became 'Odd
Girl Out'."
''The Beebo Brinker Chronicles''
==================================
'The Beebo Brinker Chronicle's contains five books in all, first
published between 1957 and 1962. They featured four characters who
appeared in at least three of the books in a chronological saga of
coming to terms with their homosexuality and navigating their ways
through gay and lesbian relationships.
''Odd Girl Out''
==================
The first book in the series, 'Odd Girl Out', was published in 1957,
and became Gold Medal Books' second best-selling title of the year.
Based on Bannon's own experiences, the plot involved a lesbian
relationship between two sorority sisters in a fictional sorority at a
fictional midwestern university. As was custom with pulp fiction
novels, neither the cover art nor the title were under the control of
the author. Both were approved by the publisher in order to be as
suggestive and lurid as possible. The main character is Laura Landon,
who realizes that she's in love with Beth, her older, more experienced
roommate, a leader in the sorority.
Lesbians depicted in literature were relatively rare in the 1950s. It
was the publisher's policy in any novel involving lesbianism that the
characters would never receive any satisfaction from the relationship.
One or both usually ended up committing suicide, going insane, or
leaving the relationship. Marijane Meaker discusses this in the 2004
foreword of 'Spring Fire': she was told by editor Dick Carroll that
because the books were distributed by the U.S. Post Office instead of
private companies delivering directly to stores, postal inspectors
would send the books back to the publisher if homosexuality was
depicted positively. The Postal Service relaxed their censorship after
several First Amendment obscenity trials, including 'Roth v. United
States' and another regarding Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' in the
mid-1950s, which gave Bannon a modicum of freedom in her plots.
Although the ending to 'Odd Girl Out' did not veer too far from the
unsatisfactory resolution formula of 'Spring Fire', 'Women's
Barracks', and Radclyffe Hall's 'The Well of Loneliness', it examined
Laura's internal struggle in the realization that despite her
femininity, she was deeply in love with another woman, and at the end
she embraced it, which was rare in lesbian fiction.
The characters and their stories served as an extension of the fantasy
life Bannon developed as a child. They became her "fantasy friends"
whose loves and lives she witnessed and through which she lived her
own life vicariously, helping her through a difficult marriage, and a
longing for a life she did not feel she was free to live. "I realized
very early that I should not marry, but I was going to make the best
of a bad thing, and I was going to make it a good thing," she
remembered. Having no practical experience in a lesbian relationship
while writing 'Odd Girl Out', she set out to gain what she termed
"fieldwork experience" in her trips to Greenwich Village, and was
successful enough to introduce those experiences into the next book in
the series before relocating once more to Southern California. But she
explained her fears about staying in Greenwich Village, saying I
would sit there (in a gay bar) in the evenings thinking, 'What if (a
police raid) happens tonight and I get hauled off to the slam with all
these other women?' I had been extremely low profile, very proper,
very Victorian wife. I know that sounds crazy in the 60s, but I was
raised by my mother and grandmother, who really came out of that era,
and talk about a rigid role-playing crowd! I couldn't imagine living
through it. I just couldn't. I thought, 'Well, that would do it. I'd
have to go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.' As easy as it might be if
you were a young woman in today's generation to think that was
exaggerating, it wasn't. It was terrifying.
''I Am a Woman''
==================
Bannon followed 'Odd Girl Out' with 'I Am a Woman (In Love With a
Woman -- Must Society Reject Me?)' in 1959. 'I Am a Woman' (the
working and common title) featured Laura after her affair with Beth,
as she finds herself in New York City's Greenwich Village, and meets a
wisecracking gay man named Jack, and becomes his best friend. Laura
has to choose between a straight woman with a wild and curious streak,
and a fascinating new character that proved to be her most popular of
the series, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the description of a
thoroughly butch lesbian. Beebo was smart, handsome, chivalrous, and
virile. Once again based on what Bannon knew, Beebo was nearly 6 ft
tall with a husky voice and a formidable physique. The personality
however, Bannon says, was drawn out of her sheer need for Beebo to
exist. After spending time in Greenwich Village and not finding anyone
like her, Bannon instead created her. She remembered, "I put Beebo
together just as I wanted her, in my heart and mind ... She was just,
quite literally, the butch of my dreams." The resolution to 'I Am a
Woman' completely flouted the trends of miserable lesbian fiction
endings, which made Bannon a hero to many lesbians.
Letters began to pour in for her from all over the country. There were
mostly propositions from men, but the letters from women thanked her
profusely and begged her for reassurance that they would be all right.
Bannon described the impact her books had from the letters she
received from people who were isolated in small towns: "The most
important things they learned (from the books) were that 1) they
weren't unique and doomed to lifelong isolation, 2) ... they weren't
'abnormal,' and 3) there was hope for a happy life. They wrote to me
in thousands, asking me to confirm these wonderful things, which I
gladly did--even though I felt only marginally better informed than
they were." The books were even translated into other languages, which
was also quite rare for the brief lives of pulp novels. Bannon
received international and domestic mail from women, saying, "This is
the only book (and they would say this about all of them) that I've
read where the women really love each other, where its OK for them to
love each other, and they don't have to kill themselves afterwards."
''Women in the Shadows''
==========================
Although her husband was aware of the books she was writing, he showed
no interest in the subject. He was interested enough in the money she
made from them, however, but had forbidden her to use her married
surname, not wishing to see it on a book cover with art of
questionable taste. She took the name "Bannon" from a list of his
customers and liked it because it contained her own name in it. She
continued to experience difficulty in her marriage, however, and in
realizing that "not all lesbians were nice people", she took these
frustrations out on her characters. "I couldn't stand some of what was
happening to me-but Beebo could take it. Beebo really, in a way, had
my nervous breakdown for me ... I think I was overwhelmed with grief
and anger that I was not able to express," she recalled later. 'Women
in the Shadows' was also published in 1959 and proved very unpopular
with Bannon's readers. The book examined interracial relationships,
self-loathing in matters of sexuality and race, alcoholism, jealousy,
violence, and as Laura marries Jack in an atypical arrangement in the
1950s, also explored the intricate details of what it was like to pass
as heterosexual in an attempt to live some semblance of what was
considered a normal life at the time.
''Journey to a Woman''
========================
Her fourth book in the series, 'Journey to a Woman,' published in
1960, again shows parallels between Bannon's own life and her plots.
Beth, of Laura's affair in 'Odd Girl Out', is living with her husband
and children in Southern California. She tries to find Laura again
nine years after college, and escapes a deranged woman who has a
fixation on her, a reflection of a relationship Bannon had with a
beautiful, but "very bewildered and unstable person." Beth writes to
an author of lesbian books in New York, and goes to meet her in hope
of finding Laura. They have a brief relationship, after which Beth
finds Laura married to Jack and with a child, then discovers Beebo as
well.
''Beebo Brinker''
===================
Returning to the character she fantasized about the most, the last
book in the series, 'Beebo Brinker', published in 1962, was Bannon's
prequel to 'Odd Girl Out'. It follows Beebo around Greenwich Village
ten years before she meets Laura in 'I Am a Woman.' Beebo gets off the
bus from her rural hometown into New York City to find a waiting
friend in Jack, and to discover herself. She begins an affair with a
famous and fading movie star, and follows her to California, only to
return to be more honest about what she wants in her life.
''The Marriage''
==================
Her fifth novel, 'The Marriage', was published in 1960, in-between
'Journey to a Woman' and 'Beebo Brinker'. 'The Marriage' again
addresses issues of love outside the realm of socially acceptable
relationships, although it is not primarily about homosexuality. In
it, Jack and Laura are friends with a young married couple who
discover they are brother and sister, and must decide whether they
will stay together or conform to societal standards.
In 1961 and 1962 Bannon also contributed several articles to 'ONE,
Inc.', the magazine of a homophile activist organization in Southern
California. One of them was a chapter that had been cut from the final
draft of 'Women in the Shadows'.
End of writing career
=======================
She was invited to speak to the Mattachine Society in the early 1960s,
but her husband's stern disapproval of her activities began to take
its toll. She stated later, "It began to be very painful. So every
time I would start to reach out (to the lesbian/gay community), I
would get struck down ... In my own life, I couldn't operationalize
(my feeling that gays should end the secrecy and take more pride in
themselves and their lives). I couldn't find a way."
After 'Beebo Brinker', Bannon said the energy to write about the
characters left her, but she got so good at her "obsessive fantasies"
that even after the books were written she continued to live
internally, and suspected it affected her subsequent relationships. "I
realize now that I was in a sort of 'holding pattern,' a way of
keeping my sanity intact while waiting for my children to grow up and
the freedom door to open", she recalled. Returning to school, Bannon
completed her master's degree at Sacramento State University and her
doctorate in linguistics at Stanford University. She was an English
professor at Sacramento State and later became associate dean of the
School of Arts and Sciences--later the College of Arts and Letters.
Rediscovery
======================================================================
Bannon's books began to fade away from publishing memory after initial
publication, especially after Gold Medal Books went out of business.
In 1975, however, Bannon was asked to include four of her books in
Arno Press's library edition of 'Homosexuality: Lesbians and Gay Men
in Society, History and Literature'. Then, in 1983, Barbara Grier of
the lesbian publishing company Naiad Press actively tracked Bannon
down and reissued the books in new covers. Grier discussed the novels,
answering the question of who among lesbian paperback authors should
be highlighted: "Ann Bannon. Without even a discussion ... In terms of
actual influence, sales, everything, Bannon."
Bannon did not outwardly advertise the fact that the books had been
released again in her department at Sacramento State. Not being
tenured, she was unsure how the information would be received.
However, word got out: "I was jet-propelled out of the closet. People
stared at me around campus, and the PE majors all waved. My chairman
told me to put the books into my promotion file, and one of my
colleagues told me my file was the only one that was any fun." She
often received small recognitions from students and faculty who were
pleased and surprised, once getting a bouquet of flowers from a
student. She said of the rediscovery, "I was so ready for something
fresh and exciting in my life. It had seemed to me, up to that point,
that not only had the books and the characters died, so had Ann
Bannon." However, following a bitter divorce, and just as the Naiad
Press editions of her books were released, Bannon endured a bout of
chronic fatigue syndrome, which she connects to repressing herself for
so long. "You've got to think that it's connected, somehow. At the
time I denied it fiercely, but I really think I beat myself up
horribly, in ways I'll never know."
In 1984, Bannon's books were featured in the documentary 'Before
Stonewall' about how gay men and lesbians lived prior to the 1969
Stonewall riots, wherein one woman remembered picking up one of
Bannon's books for the first time: "I picked up this paperback and I
opened it up ... and it sent a shiver of excitement in my whole body
that I had never felt before."
'Before Stonewall'. Dir. John Scagliotti. Videocassette. Before
Stonewall, Inc. 1984. She was featured in the Canadian documentary
'Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives' in 1992,
which recounted women's personal stories of living as lesbians from
the 1940s to 1960s. The books were selected for the Quality Paperback
Book Club in 1995. Bannon also provided the foreword for 'Strange
Sisters: The Art of Lesbian Pulp Fiction 1949-1969' in 1999,
discussing her reaction to the artwork on her own books and the other
lesbian pulp fiction books she bought and read. Five of 'The Beebo
Brinker Chronicles' were reissued by Cleis Press again between 2001
and 2003--excluding 'The Marriage'--with autobiographical forewords
that described Bannon's experiences of writing the books and her
reaction to their popularity, causing another wave of interest.
Reacting to the renewed interest in the books, Bannon wrote in the
2002 introduction to 'Odd Girl Out' that she was shocked to find out
that her characters were not only remembered but that they were
archetypes among the lesbian community. The books are frequently on
required reading lists for Women's and LGBT studies college courses.
Bannon often admits to being surprised by this, explaining that she
had no such aspirations when she was writing 'Odd Girl Out': "If I
'had' known, it might well have resulted in a much more polished
product, but one that would have been so cautious and self-conscious
as to be entirely forgettable. It would never--my best guess--have had
the vibrant life it has now."
Literary scholar Yvonne Keller named Bannon as one of a small group of
writers whose work formed the subgenre of "pro-lesbian" pulp fiction;
others include Sloane Britain, Paula Christian, Joan Ellis, March
Hastings, Marjorie Lee, Della Martin, Rea Michaels, Claire Morgan, Vin
Packer, Randy Salem, Artemis Smith, Valerie Taylor, Tereska Torres,
and Shirley Verel.
Identity
==========
Since so little information was available about lesbians and
lesbianism at the time, Bannon's books, through their far-reaching
distribution and popularity served to form a part of a lesbian
identity not only for the heterosexual population at large, but
lesbians themselves. Lesbian author and historian Joan Nestle called
the books "survival literature", explaining: "In whatever towns or
cities these books were read, they were spreading the information that
meant a new hope for trapped and isolated women". One retrospective
writer noted, "[U]ntil the late 1960s, when the sexual revolution was
emerging, the pulps provided a cultural space that helped to forge a
queer identity".
Scholar Andrea Loewenstein published the first in-depth review of
Bannon's books in 1980, and notes that they were "exceptionally good
pulp" that caused unexpected strong feelings of sadness or anger among
lesbians when they were read twenty years after being published.
Bannon depicts strict roles of butch and femme, and gays and lesbians
as self-destructive, closeted, paranoid, and alcoholic. Loewenstein
remarks that readers in 1980 had a tendency to reject that kind of
reality in Bannon's stories. "Since much of our past is so bitter,
[we] ... pretend away our most recent history". Loewenstein suggests
the struggles Bannon's characters endured were ones that Bannon must
have faced herself. When Laura declares her joy in her love for Beth
in 'Odd Girl Out' while simultaneously questioning if it is right,
Loewenstein states "one hears quite clearly the voice of Ann Bannon,
questioning her own right to happiness". Similarly, remarking on
Bannon's treatment of Beebo in 'Women in the Shadows' by making her
violent, alcoholic and self-destructive, Loewenstein notes, "she needs
to humiliate Beebo so badly that she makes her disappear". Loewenstein
remarks Bannon's characters are deeply conflicted by enjoying
relationships they feel are morally wrong, and they are acting out
cycles of self-hatred, though what remains at the end is "surprisingly
... passionate, tender, and erotic".
Writer Diane Hamer attests that Bannon's books and characters
represent a part of identity where women are unsure if they are gay or
straight, man or woman, ashamed or accepting of who they are. In
receiving no clear answers from Bannon herself, women were left to try
to figure these questions out for themselves. Hamer writes, "What
Bannon did was to provide a 'range' of possible trajectories to
lesbianism ... Bannon, by constructing fictional biographies for her
lesbian characters, produced a new knowledge about how one arrives at
a lesbian identity."
Bannon also addresses the issue of race in 'Women in the Shadows' when
Laura begins an affair with a woman representing herself as Eastern
Indian, but who is actually a lighter skinned African American. The
duality of their relationship is expressed not only in skin color but
through their personalities. Laura, blond and passionate, contrasts
with Tris, who is dark but emotionally detached. Race, in this
instance, is a "metaphor for the opposition between inside and outside
that govern Bannon's sense of what a lesbian is".
The concept of a lesbian identity is also explored throughout 'Journey
to a Woman', as Beth leaves her husband and children to find Laura.
Beth is followed by Vega, a woman scarred deeply--both emotionally and
physically--with whom Beth had an affair. Vega shoots herself at the
end of the story. Scholar Christopher Nealon suggests that Vega's
scars and emotional pain represent the anguish of self-hatred and the
self-destructive phases Bannon imposed upon her characters in 'Women
in the Shadows'. Because Laura has grown from the complete adoration
of Beth in 'Odd Girl Out' and is unable to give Beth the same devotion
when Beth finds her again, Nealon writes that Bannon makes the point
that it is impossible to sustain "a lesbian identity that always
returns to the moment of self-discovery". Beth, instead, finds Beebo,
now older and much calmer, who gives her hope and the promise of love,
which Nealon equates to a final identity for Bannon's characters.
In the new forewords to the Cleis Press editions, Bannon addressed the
criticisms of her characters as self-destructive in limiting roles,
explaining that she simply depicted what she knew and felt at the
time. Bannon has said she knows the concerns of the women who are
uncomfortable with the themes of her books: "I can understand that;
they weren't there. To them some of it looks negative and some of it
looks depressing. Although I didn't feel that way. I always felt
excited when I was writing them."
Gender
========
All five books of 'The Beebo Brinker Chronicles' depict characters
trying to come to terms with their ostracism from heterosexual
society. Christopher Nealon adds that the characters are also trying
to "understand the relationship between their bodies and their
desires"; the continuing appeal of the novels, Nealon states, is due
to the characters being "beautifully misembodied".
In 'Odd Girl Out', Laura Landon's resistance to the idea that she may
be homosexual lies in her own concept of femininity rather than any
repugnance for loving women. In 'I Am a Woman', the second book in the
series, Beebo's butch appearance "seems to alternately terrify and
attract Laura", leading to a very erotic physical relationship.
However, when Laura lashes out at Beebo in a moment of self-pity, it
is her masculinity that Laura attacks, invalidating Beebo's uniqueness
and the core of her desirability violently. In the book that exhibits
the most self-destruction in the series, 'Women in the Shadows', Laura
expresses shame when accompanying Beebo outside of Greenwich Village,
fearing Beebo will be arrested and jailed. Facing the end of their
relationship, Beebo expresses the desire to be a man, if only to be
able to marry Laura to give her a normal life.
Bannon's last book, 'Beebo Brinker', which takes place before the
others when Beebo is eighteen years old, focuses on her realization
not only that she is gay, but that she is also a masculine woman.
Nealon writes that Bannon's exploration of Beebo's masculinity is not
to give excuses for her desires, but "to get at the source of
specialness, the sources of her claim to be treated with dignity". By
connecting her characters' bodies with their desires, Bannon allows
further understanding of self as normal, and that homosexuality is
acceptable.
Style
======================================================================
Bannon's books, like most pulp fiction novels, were not reviewed by
newspapers or magazines when they were originally published between
1957 and 1962. However, since their release they have been the subject
of analyses that offer differing opinions of Bannon's books as a
reflection of the moral standards of the decade, a subtle defiance of
those morals, or a combination of both. Andrea Loewenstein notes
Bannon's use of cliché, suggesting that it reflected Bannon's own
belief in the culturally repressive ideas of the 1950s. Conversely,
writer Jeff Weinstein remarks that Bannon's "potboilers" are an
expression of freedom because they address issues mainstream fiction
did not in the 1950s. Instead of cliché, Weinstein writes that her
characters become more realistic as she exploits the dramatic plots,
because they "are influenced by the melodramatic conventions of the
culture that excludes them".
Diane Hamer likens Bannon's work to the Mills and Boon of lesbian
literature, but unlike conventional romance novels, her stories never
really have neat and tidy conclusions. Hamer also takes note of
Bannon's use of Freudian symbolism: in 'I Am a Woman', Jack frequently
mentions that he is being psychoanalyzed, and his friends react with
interest. Jack labels Laura "Mother" and continues to refer to this
nickname instead of her real name throughout the series, as though
Bannon--through Jack--is vaguely mocking Freud and the ideas that have
framed the construction of sexuality in the 1950s. Scholar Michele
Barale remarks that Bannon's literary devices in 'Beebo Brinker' defy
the expectations of the audience for whom the novel was specifically
marketed: heterosexual males. Bannon chooses the first character, an
"everyman" named--significantly--Jack Mann, with whom the male
audience identifies, only to divulge that he is gay and has maternal
instincts. His interest turns to Beebo, whom he finds "handsome" and
lost, and he takes her home, gets her drunk, and becomes asexually
intimate with her. Barale writes that Bannon manipulates male readers
to become interested in the story, then turns them into voyeurs and
imposes homosexual desires upon them, though eventually places them in
a safe position to understand a gay story from a heterosexual point of
view.
The erotic nature of the books has been noted as adding to their
uniqueness. Loewenstein remarks on the intensity of Laura's passion:
"The presentation of a woman as a joyfully aggressive person is, in
itself, a rare achievement in 1957". A 2002 retrospective of Bannon's
books claims "there were more explicit and nuanced representations of
sexuality in those paperbacks than could be found almost anywhere
else". Author Suzana Danuta Walters represents the eroticism in
Bannon's books as a form of rebellion. In the 'Harvard Gay &
Lesbian Review', Jenifer Levin writes, "Know this: 'Beebo lives'. From
the midst of a repressive era, from the pen of a very proper,
scholarly, 'seemingly' conforming wife and mother, came this
astonishingly open queer figment of fictional being, like molten
material from some volcano of the lesbian soul."
Bannon's books have, with the benefit of time, been described in
vastly different terms, from "literary works" among pulp
contemporaries, to "libidinised trash". However disparately Bannon's
books are described in feminist and lesbian literary retrospectives,
almost every mention concedes the significance of 'The Beebo Brinker
Chronicles'. One retrospective writer called Bannon's books
"titillating trash, but indispensable reading to the nation's
lesbians."
Legacy
======================================================================
Critics have since remarked that Bannon's books are remarkable for
portraying homosexual relationships relatively accurately. The
continuity of characters in the series also gave her books a unique
quality, especially when most lesbian characters during this time were
one-dimensional stereotypes who met punishment for their desires.
Bannon's characters have been called "accessibly human", and still
engrossing by contemporary standards compared to being "revolutionary"
when first released. LGBT historian Susan Stryker describes the
relationships between Bannon's characters as mostly positive,
satisfactory, and at times complex depictions of lesbian and gay
relationships, which Bannon attributed to not letting go of the hope
that she could "salvage (her) own life." One retrospective of lesbian
pulp fiction remarked on the reasons why Bannon's books in particular
were popular is because they were so different from anything else
being published at the time: "Bannon was implicitly challenging the
prevailing belief that homosexual life was brief, episodic, and more
often than not resulted in death ... Bannon insisted on the continuity
of lesbian love, while everything in her culture was speaking of its
quick and ugly demise."
Bannon set her stories in and among gay bars in the 1950s and 1960s
that were secret. As described in 'Beebo Brinker', one had to knock on
the door and be recognized before being let in. In reality, women were
not allowed to wear pants in some bars in New York City. Police raided
bars and arrested everyone within regularly; a raid on a gay bar
prompted the seminal Stonewall riots in 1969 that started the gay
rights movement. Because of the atmosphere of secrecy and shame,
little was recorded at the time about what it was like to be gay then,
and Bannon unwittingly recorded history from her own visits to
Greenwich Village. In 2007, one of the writers who adapted three of
the books into a play said of Bannon's work, "I think she rises above
the pulp. She wasn't trying to write trash. There wasn't any place for
a woman to be writing this kind of material ... But I just think the
writing's transcended its time and its era and its market."
Author Katherine V. Forrest claimed Bannon and her books "are in a
class by themselves" and credits Bannon with saving her life, writing
in 2005, Overwhelming need led me to walk a gauntlet of fear up to
the cash register. Fear so intense that I remember nothing more, only
that I stumbled out of the store in possession of what I knew I must
have, a book as necessary to me as air ... I found it when I was
eighteen years old. It opened the door to my soul and told me who I
was.
Adaptations
=============
In 2007, an off-off-Broadway company named The Hourglass Group
produced an adaptation of 'The Beebo Brinker Chronicles' in a
production that ran for a month. The writers, Kate Moira Ryan and
Linda S. Chapman, used material from 'I Am a Woman', 'Women in the
Shadows' and 'Journey to a Woman' to predominantly positive reviews.
It was successful enough to be moved Off Broadway for another ten-week
run in 2008. The play's writers commented on the difficulty of
lesbian-themed works finding financial success. They were tempted to
make it more appealing by turning to camp for comedy. However, one of
the writers said, "I just felt like, how can you turn these people
into a joke? I mean, these people are real people! Why would I direct
a play where I held the characters in some sort of contempt or felt
that they were ridiculous? We are allowed to do something else besides
camp." The stage adaptation of 'The Beebo Brinker Chronicles' was
produced by Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, and it won the Gay and
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Award for "fair,
accurate, and inclusive" portrayals of gay and lesbian people in New
York Theater. In 2021 the Palm Springs Desert Ensemble Theatre
produced the play.
In April 2008, Bannon appeared with the Seattle Women's Chorus in a
performance called "Vixen Fiction". Bannon read excerpts of her work
and discussed the effects of her writing on her own life and the lives
of her readers. U.S. cable network HBO has optioned Bannon's novels
for potential development as a series.
Honors
========
In 1997, Bannon's work was included in a collection of authors who had
made the deepest impact on the lives and identities of gays and
lesbians, titled 'Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian
Writers'. In 2000, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors awarded
Bannon a Certificate of Honor "for breaking new ground with works like
'Odd Girl Out' and 'Women in the Shadows'" and for "voic (ing) lesbian
experiences at a time when explicit lesbian subject matter was
silenced by government and communities." In 2004, Bannon was elected
into the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. She
received the Sacramento State Alumni Association's Distinguished
Faculty Award for 2005, and received the Trailblazer Award from the
Golden Crown Literary Society the same year; the GCLS created the Ann
Bannon GCLS Popular Choice Award. She was the recipient of the Alice B
Award in 2008, that goes to authors whose careers have been
distinguished by consistently well-written stories about lesbians. In
May 2008, Bannon was given the Pioneer Award from the Lambda Literary
Foundation.
In 2012, she was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of
the LGBT History Month.
In retirement
===============
Bannon retired from teaching and college administration at California
State University, Sacramento, in 1997, but tours the country visiting
paperback-collecting conventions and speaking at colleges and
universities about her writings and experiences. She was a guest of
National Public Radio's Peabody Award-winning talk show 'Fresh Air'
with Terry Gross, and has also been featured in Gross's book, 'All I
Did Was Ask', a collection of transcripts from the show. Bannon also
speaks at gay-themed events around the country and is working on her
memoirs.
In a 2002 editorial written by Bannon in 'Curve', she discussed how
her books survived despite criticisms by censors, Victorian moralists,
and purveyors of literary "snobbery" in writing, "To the persistent
surprise of many of us, and of the critics who found us such an easy
target years ago, the books by, of and for women found a life of their
own. They--and we--may still not be regarded as conventionally
acceptable 'nice' literature, as it were--but I have come to value
that historical judgment. We wrote the stories no one else could tell.
And in so doing, we captured a slice of life in a particular time and
place that still resonates for members of our community."
Personal life
======================================================================
Bannon lives in Sacramento. She has two children with her former
husband. In 2021 she told an interviewer that her elder daughter, who
converted to Catholicism and became very conservative, "does not
approve of any of this at all" but that her younger daughter is "open
and welcoming and loving".
References cited
==================
* Bannon, Ann (2001), 'Beebo Brinker', Cleis Press.
* Bannon, Ann (2001), 'Odd Girl Out', Cleis Press.
* Bannon, Ann (2002), 'I Am a Woman', Cleis Press.
* Nealon, Christopher (2001). 'Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical
Emotion Before Stonewall', Duke University Press.
* Sky, Melissa (2010). 'Twilight Tales: Ann Bannon's Lesbian Pulp
Series 'The Beebo Brinker Chronicles' ', VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken.
* Stryker, Susan (2001). 'Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the
Golden Age of the Paperback', Chronicle Books.
External links
======================================================================
* [
http://www.annbannon.com/index.html Author's official website]
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20070928104739/http://www.cleispress.com/category_index.php?category=Paperback,Classics
Cleis Press]
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20070914033838/http://www.inthelifetv.org/inthelife/episodes/?episode=39
'In the Life' episode of April 2006 does a report on Bannon and
lesbian pulp fiction]
*
* [
http://thehighbar.tv/2012/02/14/ann-bannon-on-lesbian-pulp-fiction/
Video interview with Bannon from February 2012]
*
[
https://eds.s.ebscohost.com/eds/results?vid=0&sid=7785c181-5b47-46bb-bfbf-bd6790e73ed8%40redis&bquery=AR%2B%2522Sally%2BTaft%2BDuplaix%2BCollection.%2522&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZjbGkwPUZDJmNsdjA9WSZ0eXBlPTEmc2VhcmNoTW9kZT1BbmQmc2l0ZT1lZHMtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl
Sally Taft Duplaix Collection] at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection,
Smith College Special Collections
License
=========
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Bannon
