As for straight men, alas, I was never very kind to them; they represented the wardens of society, the stern, self-righteous “moralists,” the reprovers, the naysayers, the judgment-passers, the anhedonic social cops one had to circumvent to make it to the ball. They were all Oliver Cromwells, puritanical, controlling, condescending, or outright contemptuous. But I was looking for Oliver’s opposite number, that one-in-a-million man; I was looking for, say, Charles II, the Merry Monarch, who succeeded him. (Never mind that Charles was straight—very; he was nonetheless a man of illuminating tolerance, wit, generosity, and kindness. Anybody who brings back Christmas, the theaters, and maypoles to a country starved for joy is my kind of guy.) Sadly, there were too few Charles’s and too many Olivers in the world.
Perhaps a part of the problem for me lay in the fact that, like most women of my generation, I inhabited all the “good girl” traditions, myths, and strictures of the years following World War II. I did not know they were a stone mirage beyond which other possibilities not only existed, but were survivable, even nourishing. It can be healthy to breach the wall. One of the ways in which I did that was to provide my characters with a sort of transcendent sexuality as an antidote to the constraints of their lives. In his enlightening book, Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion Before Stonewall (Duke University Press, 2001), Christopher Nealon makes this point eloquently, referring to the tendency in lesbian pulp paperbacks to use “transporting sex as a solution to homophobia.” This is astutely observed; we needed stalwart social networks, we needed confirming friendships, but most of all, we needed the fire and enchantment of wonderful sex to validate our lives. Nothing else was going to help. It had to come from within us, and no aspect of human emotion is more deeply within us than that most delicate and powerful of mysteries, our sexuality. It was the glory of that sexual transport that eased the desperation of one’s queerness.
But when you light that fire, as humans have been observing in wry and regretful ways since they could first think about it at all, you can get scorched. That’s what happens to Beebo and Laura in this story. Laura becomes stifled by Beebo’s intensity; Beebo goes a little mad. But hang on—good things are coming further down the road. I could not stay angry at the characters I birthed and loved for very long.
Not long ago, I discovered an interesting analysis of Women in the Shadows from French writer and critic Hélène Cixous. She surprised and pleased me by observing, “This novel has important historical significance. Originally published in 1959, this novel broke from the formula of 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. It dealt with real issues in lesbian relationships like domestic violence, racism, and internalized homophobia. Other lesbian pulp fiction novels of the time were simply voyeuristic looks at lesbians and fostered the image that lesbians were predatory monsters. The women in this novel were tied to 1950s conventions, but they were still ahead of their time. The plot leaves much to be desired. However, this book should not be brushed aside because it is outdated. In its proper historical context, this novel is a masterpiece.”
The commentary is quoted on the Queer Theory Web site. I am abashed to hear the book described in such strong, affirming terms, but gratified, too, to be taken seriously, after so many decades of dismissal as a producer of “sleaze.”
There are those who have been kind enough to say that Ann Bannon offered a more positive portrait of lesbian life in the 50s and 60s than did many of her contemporaries. You would be tempted to doubt that reading this novel. But, while there are wrenching disagreements among the characters, and a small but telling tragedy, I remember thinking as I wrote that it was an uplifting story. There was violence, but it was intended to dramatize the toxic bias of the time and the inward turning anguish of the women who confronted and survived it. In their anger at the injustice of it all, they sometimes turned their frustration on themselves and those they loved. It was not because they were evil people; it was because they were wounded and there was no hospice for such wounds. There were only one’s personal friendships, which thus bore a heavy strain at times. And there were the women’s bars, those temples of dangerous comfort where sorrows could be drowned, but at a cost. No gay and women’s bookstores yet, soon to become the bricks and mortar of the community. And no World Wide Web, the new universal “bar” or meeting place. No forum for frank and open interchange. Back then, there was just unimaginable isolation and a lot of trouble. It was not a time and place for sissies.
One final thought: you don’t always know the power of your own words, especially when you’re not sure there’s anyone out there reading them. I half convinced myself, while writing this book, that I was writing a letter to myself, that these words would not be read by anyone but their author, and therefore I could spill emotion all over the landscape. I have mixed emotions about the story that came out: some good, some not so. But on the whole, it was a valuable transition for me. I’m glad to have the validation from
