Lesbian Pulp Fiction - Development of The Genre

Development of The Genre

In the early to mid 20th century, only a handful of books were published that addressed lesbians as characters in relationships with women. Those notable novels were published in hardback and were as follows:

• We Too Are Drifting

In 1935, Gale Wilhelm published We Too Are Drifting with Random House. A tale of drama and damnation, loathing and loss, We Too Are Drifting explored woodcut artist Jan Morales' life as she falls out of love with a first female lover and into a tortured situation with another woman, whom she loses in the end. Not a happy ending, which was apparently a result that lesbian readers expected.

• Pity for Women

Doubleday brought out Helen Anderson's Pity For Women in 1937. The two characters, Ann and Judith, are filled with less loathing than Wilhelm's women in We Too Are Drifting, but drama and loss still reign supreme. Lesbian literary historian Linnea Stenson says that Pity For Women is the first lesbian novel to show evidence of a resistance by the author - and characters - to the prevailing attitudes of prejudice and misunderstanding. In these modern days of so much political and social discussion of gay and lesbian marriage, it's interesting to note that Ann and Judith pledge themselves to one another using the words that Ruth spoke to Naomi in the Bible. ("Whither thou goest, so shall I….) This is the first instance of two women in lesbian literature attempting to formalize their union with one another. But it's not enough to save Judith and Ann. The women are separated at the end with one of them insane and again, no happy ending.

• Torchlight To Valhalla (later titled The Strange Path when reissued in paper in 1953)

Gale Wilhelm's Torchlight To Valhalla (1938) marked the first subtle shift away from the tortured souls in the few previous novels containing lesbian themes. It might, in fact, be considered the first overt lesbian coming out novel. Young writer Morgen struggles with her identity as well as with the attention of a young male suitor only to finally accept that she loves Toni, a seventeen-year-old girl four years her junior. For the first time in a lesbian novel, both characters were given androgynous names, Morgen and Toni. Though Patricia Highsmith's 1952 novel The Price of Salt (written under the pen name Claire Morgan) is generally given credit as the first novel in which the two heroines experience a positive ending, the 1938 Torchlight predates it.