Pride Month – Beebo Brinker
The Beebo Brinker Chronicles are a series of five lesbian pulp romance novels (with a sixth, The Marriage, sometimes considered part of the series) written by celebrated lesbian pulp-fiction writer Ann Bannon (pseudonym for Ann Weldy) and published by Gold Medal Books, a division of Fawcett Publications, from 1957 to 1962. Produced during the formative years of modern lesbian fiction (ca. 1950-1970), the series’ frank and realistic depictions of homosexuality (for both women and men), gender identity, the gay bar scene, and self discovery is often credited with helping to articulate lesbian identity in the 1960s. While the main character through most of the series is Laura Landon (no, not the historical-romance writer!), the series is named after the recurring character of Beebo Brinker, “tall and handsome, vacillating between overconfidence and vulnerability after leaving her family’s farm in Wisconsin,”
who came to embody the archetype of the butch lesbian.
We hold the first, second, and fourth books in the series, which form part of our lesbian fiction collection in the UWM LGBT Collection. The first, Odd Girl Out, was published in 1957 with a cover illustration by Barye Phillips. Our copy is a first edition signed by the author. The second, I Am a Woman, came out in 1959. Our copy is a third printing from 1962, but is also signed by the author. The fourth, Journey to a Woman, was published in 1960 and our copy is a first edition. We hope to complete our set with the third novel Women in the Shadows published in 1959, and the eponymous Beebo Brinker, which although it was published last in 1962, narratively serves as a prequel to the series.
