The Beebo Brinker Omnibus: Ann Bannon's Pulp Classics

Ann Bannon

Nov 2015 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Designated the "queen of lesbian pulp fiction" for authoring five landmark novels, Ann Bannon's work defined lesbian fiction for the pre-Stonewall generation. Unlike many writers of the period, however, Bannon broke through the shame and isolation typically portrayed in lesbian pulps, offering instead women characters who embrace their sexuality against great odds.

With Beebo Brinker, Bannon introduces the title character, a butch 17-year-old farm girl newly arrived in New York after she is driven from her Wisconsin home town for wearing drag to the State Fair. Befriended by the gay Jack Mann, a father figure with a weakness for runaways, Beebo sets out to find love. She never knew what she wanted — until she came to Greenwich Village and found the love that smolders in the shadows of the twilight world.

The 880-page Beebo Brinker Omnibus includes the novels Beebo Brinker, I Am a Woman, Journey to a Woman, Odd Girl Out, and Women in the Shadows. Sexy, dangerous, and often touching, the paperbacks sold millions. Chronicling the reality of 1950s lesbian life, Beebo Brinker is an astounding and engaging read.

Ratings and reviews

I feel we owe Ann Bannon such a debt for setting such amazing examples of writing and depictions of queer life in the pre-Stonewall era

About the author

ANN BANNON is the author of the classic lesbian pulp novels I Am a Woman, Journey to a Woman, Odd Girl Out, and Women in the Shadows. She lives in Sacramento, CA. Visit her at www.annbannon.com. "Throughout the Beebo Brinker novels, readers are able to see lesbians in various levels of committed relationships and catch a glimpse of the growing gay and lesbian community of Greenwich Village, New York." —Feminists for Choice "When I was young, Bannon's books let me imagine myself into her New York City neighborhoods of short-haired, dark-eyed butch women and stubborn, tight-lipped secretaries with hearts ready to be broken. Her books come close to the kind of books that had made me feel fantastic and damned in my youth, but somehow she just managed to sustain a sense of hope. And of course, there was her romantic portrait of the kind of butch woman I idealized. I would have dated Beebo, no question..." —Dorothy Allison