Women in the Shadows (English)

The third and darkest of Ann Bannon's lesbian pulp novel series, WOMEN IN THE SHADOWS (1959) deals with jealousy, alcoholism, domestic violence, rape, racism, and mental breakdown within the lives of Bannon's gay and lesbian characters. After a two year relationship, Laura Landon and Beebo Brinker find their romance crumbling as Beebo increasingly turns to drink and Laura finds herself attracted by an alluring East Indian dancer. Eventually, tormented by the frustration of being a lesbian in a socially repressive world, Laura agrees to an unconventional marriage with her gay friend Jack. Fueled in part, according to Bannon, by her own troubled marriage, WOMEN IN THE SHADOWS showed how gay and lesbian relationships were as dark and problematic as heterosexual ones--a sharp break from the note of hope sounded at the end of I AM A WOMAN. minimize