_The Golden Cage._ Dial 1959. (trans. from French by Meyer Levin). A group of refugees in wartime, waiting for visas in Portugal, undergo various transient attachments. Among the group are several lesbians, treated with sympathy and sensitivity.
TRAVIS, BEN. _The Strange Ones._ Beacon pbo 1959, (m). Evening waster about a young no-good who earns his living as a paid escort/gigolo and relaxes with boy friends but still loudly insists he is normal. Your editor enjoyed this out of sheer perversity; usually novels treating of male homosexuality engage the subject with deadly seriousness, while the paperback originals reek with drooling voyeuristic strip-teases about lesbians, for the sake of men who like to enjoy pipe-dreams about lesbians making love, and about some Big Handsome Hero who eventually converts the girls to “normality” with some secret formula of caresses. So it is a nice change to see the gay BOYS getting the in-and-out-of-the-sheets treatment for once.
TRYON, MARK. _The Fire that Burns._ Berkley pbo 1959 scv.
_Take it Off._ Vixen Press 1953, Modern Press 1956, scv.
UNTERMEYER, LOUIS. (Editor). _The Treasury of Ribaldry._ Doubleday 1956, pbr Popular Library 1959 (v. 1). This contains Lucian’s “Dialogues of Courtesans”, entitled in this translation “The Lesbian” and “A Curious Deception”. The hardcover edition also contains some of the Songs of Bilitis.
VAIL, AMANDA (pseud. of Warren Miller). _The Bright Young Things._ Little, Brown, 1958. pbr Crest 1960.
In a story of two worldly young college girls experimenting with life and love, a subplot involves two of their friends, lesbians. Minor but fun.
VANEER, WILLIAM. _Love Starved Wife._ Bedside Books Inc, 1959. scv.
VAN HELLER, MARCUS. _The House of Borgia_, Paris, Olympia Press, 1957. Volume #16 in The Traveler’s Companion, straight scv.
VAN ROYEN, ASTRID. _Awake, Monique._ Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1957, pbr Crest 1958. Astrid, an orphaned child in some unnamed European country (Holland, Belgium, Sweden?) is sent to live with her uncle Rainier; she lives upstairs with Rainier (eventually with a Lolita-like intimacy) while Rainier’s wife lives downstairs with a lesbian friend, Dini. Despite a “broadminded” plea for understanding, Rainier strictly forbids Astrid to have anything to do with the girls. The book is well-written, tasteful, and certainly candid.