Part 9 (2/2)
+ MORGAN, CLAIRE. (pseud of Patricia Highsmith) _The Price of Salt._ Coward-McCann, 1952, pbr Bantam 1953, 1959. Fine novel of an affair between two very nice, very courageous, very well-adjusted women whose initial attraction becomes the mainspring of both their lives. The author does not use one single stereotype or cliche; this is probably _the_ American novel of the lesbian.
MORGAN, NANCY. _City of Women_, pbo Gold Medal 1952, 1959. Lesbian episodes in a novel of women living in barracks at Pearl Harbor.
MORLEY, IRIS. _The Proud Paladin._ N. Y. Morrow 1936. Lesbian content vague and doubtful, BAYOR and fco.
MORRO, DON. _The Virgin._ pbo Beacon 1955, released in 1959. scv.
MOSS, GEOFFREY. _That Other Love._ Doubleday, 1930. A long-continued affair between Phillida and an older friend breaks off because of the younger woman's desire for children.
MOTLEY, WILLARD. _Knock on Any Door._ N. Y., Appleton-Century, 1947, pbr Signet 1953, (m).
+ MURDOCH, IRIS. _The Bell._ N. Y. Viking 1958, (m). A fine, occasionally funny novel of an Anglican lay church-community centers around Michael Meade, a man of honor, intelligence, and integrity-and a h.o.m.os.e.xual. His hopes of being ordained as a priest were destroyed when, as a schoolteacher, he became entangled with young Nick; Nick's appearance at the community destroys Michael's peace of mind thoroughly, and an obliquely handled relations.h.i.+p between Nick, Michael and a guileless youngster, Toby, spending the summer at the community, eventually destroys the community entirely. But it isn't all gloom and doom; the level of the writing is highly competent, sometimes wildly hilarious, and through all his difficulties Michael is able to realize that eventually he will ”experience again ... that infinitely extended requirement which one human being makes on another.” A book which emphasizes the triumph of love, and one of the recent best. ((Editor's note; why are the best novels of male h.o.m.os.e.xuality written by women? Mesdames Renault and Murdoch are giving their best to the men. Is it a question of detachment?))
MURPHY, DENNIS. _The Sergeant._ Viking 1958, pbr Crest 1959, (m).
MURRAY, WILLIAM. _The Fugitive Romans._ pbo, Popular Library 1955.
Brief variant episode among a Hollywood location crew abroad.
NEILSEN, HELEN. _The Fifth Caller._ Morrow, 1959. Dr. Lillian Whitehall, metaphysician, is murdered; as each of her five callers is interviewed to find the guilty party, it develops that the dead woman was a cruel, domineering repressed lesbian. Well written, though unsympathetic.
NEFF, WANDA FRAIKEN. _We Sing Diana._ Boston, Houghton 1928. Story of a girl too inhibited to face her own nature.
NILES, BLAIR. _Strange Brother._ N. Y. Liveright 1931, pbr Harris Publications 1949, pbr Avon 1952, 1958, 1959.
NIN, ANAIS. _Winter of Artifice._ Paris, Obelisk Press 1939, also in _Under a Gla.s.s Bell_, Dutton, 1948. The first edition has 100 pages or so, not included in later editions, in which she recounts her liaison with a famous American writer and his wife, all disguised, of course. (All of this writer's work seems to be vaguely tinged with variance.)
_Ladders to Fire._ Dutton, 1945, 1946.
NORDAY, MICHAEL. _Stage for Fools._ Vixen Press 1955. pbr tct _Strange Thirsts_, Beacon 1959. Evening waster about a lush actress making a comeback on a college campus, who revenges herself on an indifferent male by entrapping his girl into a drunken lesbian episode and inviting him to watch the show. A shocker.
_Warped._ Beacon pbo 1955, 1960. Very apt t.i.tle; evening waster about a crooked fight game. One sympathetically portrayed lesbian character in the many mixed affairs.
NORMANDIE, ROGER. _The Lion's Den._ N. Y., Key 1957. scv.
+ O'BRIEN, KATE. _As Music and Splendor._ Harper. 1958. Novel of two very different young Irish girls sent to study music on the Continent during the great age of Italian opera; their personal lives differ as widely as their careers. One, Clare Halvey, drifts into a love affair with Luisa Carriaga, a Spanish contralto; their relations.h.i.+p is treated delicately, but with warmth and impersonal sympathy. Excellent for opera lovers and for those who are tired to death of books where every last detail is spelled out as frankly as the law allows.
+ O'DONOVAN, JOAN. _Dangerous Worlds._ Morrow, 1958. Collection of excellent short stories.
O'HIGGINS, HARVEY. _The Story of Julie Cane._ Harper, 1924.
Explicit, for its day, story of an intense relations.h.i.+p between a schoolmistress and her ward.
OLIVIA (see DOROTHY BUSSY).
O'NEILL, ROSE. _The Goblin Woman._ N. Y. Doubleday 1930. Fey, symbolic novel of Helga, the Goblin Woman (who represents purity) set down in a society far from pure. There are many lesbian episodes and references to inter-feminine love. (see poetry supplement.)
O'HARA, NOEL. _The Last Virgin._ Chariot Books pb 1959. This is a reprint of David George Kin's ”Women Without Men”, containing six of the ten stories; new t.i.tle, new author, even new copyright date-who's kidding who? It does not contain the d.a.m.ning introduction, and without it, appears fairly sympathetic. Curious little item.
PACKER, VIN (pseud; see also ANN ALDRICH) _Spring Fire._ pbo Gold Medal 1952. Now well-known and rather gamy novel of sorority house life and an unhappy lesbian affair between naive freshman Mitch and neurotic Lana.
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