Vilja Reads

While any cover tagline using phrases like “the love that smoulders in the twilight world” seems to promise cheesy fun, this — like many other lesbian classics — is instead an earnest novel that tries to dip into the good and the bad of being gay in America the 1950s and ’60s, and ask for understanding.

This is a hard novel to rate, since it’s both a bit of history, escapist entertainment, a “straight” novel, and a romance genre novel, though much less that than it was straight. But I don’t rate for impact or worn-off novelty. In short: points awarded for characterization and interest, points deducted for cliche and easy escapes.

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Note: There are several pirated versions of Ann Bannon’s lesbian classics being sold as e-books on Amazon.com. They are still in copyright and the only legitimate copies are published by Cleis Press. Now you know.