Skyscraper (38 page)

NOW, VOYAGER

Olive Higgins Prouty

Afterword by Judith Mayne

eISBN: 9781558616332 | ISBN: 9781558614765

A soaring romance and one of the greatest makeover stories in literature,
Now, Voyager
, first enthralled readers in 1941 and became a screen phenomenon the following year. Bette Davis triumphantly portrayed heroine Charlotte Vale, the shy, dowdy Boston heiress who blossoms into a defiant, sexually liberated woman. After a nervous breakdown releases her from the tyranny of her mother and blueblood society, Charlotte embarks on an ocean cruise where her fabulous new wardrobe and burgeoning charm lead to a love affair with a married man. Charlotte's transformation has just begun. . . .

“At last we have the moon and the stars: at last, that is, the public can read the novel on which one of Hollywood's most stirring melodramas is based. ”

—Tania Modleski, author of
Loving With a Vengeance

“Like the film it inspired, Olive Higgins Prouty's
Now, Voyager
is as striking for the conventions it bucks as for the ones it embraces: a vivid reminder of a time when people crossed the ocean in liners and wore hats, and a hymn to an American ideal of social, moral, and emotional independence.”

—David Leavitt, author of
The Man Who Knew Too Much

OLIVE HIGGINS PROUTY
(1882–1974) is the author of many books including
Stella Dallas
(1923), which was adapted into three films and a long-running radio serial. Later in her life, Prouty became patron and mentor to Sylvia Plath, and the inspiration for Philomena Guinea, the meddlesome character in Plath's
The Bell Jar
.

THE G-STRING MURDERS

Gypsy Rose Lee

Afterword by Rachel Shteir

eISBN: 9781558617612 | ISBN: 9781558615038

A mystery set in the underworld of burlesque theater in 1941,
The G-String Murders
draws from the larger-than-life experiences of the legendary queen of the striptease. When one performer is found strangled with a g-string, no one is above suspicion. The cops face off with the theater's tough-talking guys, and it's clear that Gypsy will have to crack the case herself. The basis of the 1943 film
Lady of Burlesque
starring Barbara Stanwyck,
The G-String Murders
was the first of two murder mysteries written by Gypsy Rose Lee.

“Recommended for the readers who feel better when their eyebrows are raised.”

—New Yorker

“A rich and lusty job, brimming over with infectious vitality and a hilarious jargon of her own.”

—Life

“Lurid, witty. . . rich show business vocabulary and stage door gags make her book almost a social document.
The G-String Murders
builds up to a hair-raising climax.”

—Time

MOTHER FINDS A BODY

Gypsy Rose Lee

Foreword by Erik Lee Preminger

eISBN: 9781558618022 | ISBN: 9781558618015

A sexy, hard-boiled murder mystery by America's most famous burlesque entertainer, this steamy sequel to
The G-String Murders
,
Gypsy Rose Lee's noir thriller, reads as if it's ripped from her own diary pages. When her mother finds a dead body in Gypsy's honeymoon trailer, Gypsy realizes that no one is who they seem to be and everyone is worthy of suspicion.

“Pure ozone to those tired of ordinary oxygen.”

—New Yorker

“One of the greatest mysteries ever written.”

—Philadelphia Daily News

“Our most famous burlesque queen may raise the temperature with a strip tease, but she chills the blood when she goes into her detective routine.”

—Boston Post

GYPSY ROSE LEE
(1911–1970) was the most famous burlesque performer and striptease artist of her day, renowned as much for her witty repartee as for removing her clothes. Born Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, Lee first performed with her sister on the vaudeville circuit, eventually landing star billing at a top New York City burlesque theater. In 1937 she moved to Hollywood and went on to appear in twelve films and her own television show. A regular contributor to the
New Yorker
, Lee published two novels, and her memoir,
Gypsy
(1957), which became the inspiration for the hugely popular Broadway musical,
Gypsy: A Musical Fable
and the 1962 film starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood.

THE GIRLS IN 3-B

Valerie Taylor

Afterword by Lisa Walker

eISBN: 9781558617629 | ISBN: 9781558614567

Annice, Barby, and Pat are the girls in 3-B, three young women
straight out of high school who leave their hometowns and land in the big city. In 1950s Chicago, they find refuge and danger. Encounters with predatory beatnik men, workplace drama, and lesbian trysts—the girls grow up quickly in this explosive melodrama about sexual identity and female friendship.

“
The Girls in 3-B
will give you a sense of the dangers and delights of passion between women in another era. . . . Valerie Taylor's much-loved story has achieved well-deserved classic status in the lesbian pulp canon.”

—Ann Bannon, author of
Odd Girl Out

“A remarkable slice of bohemia, Valerie Taylor gives ‘pulp' a good name and weaves a wondrous tale of love, lesbianism, poetry, and sex around three young women who leave their small town for the allure of the big city.”

—Judith Halberstam, author of
Female Masculinity

STRANGER ON LESBOS

Valerie Taylor

Afterword by Marcia Gallo

eISBN: 9781558618008 | ISBN: 9781558617995

Sexy, beautiful, frustrated . . . a neglected housewife finds the delights and degradations of forbidden love. Frances, a 1950s housewife, becomes bored with her suburban life and enrolls in a class at the local community college. When she meets Bake, a butch lesbian, her life completely changes. In thrall to a world of martini lunches, late nights at queer bars, and a sexual passion she never knew was possible, Frances must choose between the safety of being a wife and mother, or the dangers of life on the edge of society. In this age of
Mad Men
fever, the reissue of
Stranger on Lesbos
comes at a perfect moment, invoking an era we can't help but romanticize yet despise.

VALERIE TAYLOR
is the pen name of Velma Young (1913–1997), prolific author of best-selling pulp fiction novels, poetry, and romances, including
Whisper Their Love, The Girls in 3-B, World Without Women, Journey to Fulfillment, Stranger on Lesbos
, and
Ripening
. A longtime activist for gay and lesbian rights, she was a co-founder of Mattachine Midwest and the Lesbian Writers Conference in Chicago.

BY CECILE

Tereska Torres

eISBN: 9781558618060 | ISBN: 9781558618053

In Paris, a young woman with the spirit of an artist finds refuge with an older man just after WWII. He introduces her to nightclubs, intellectuals, and non-monogamy. Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Eartha Kitt all make an appearance. When she falls for his mistress, she begins to live a life she deems worthy of writing about . . . but only under the pseudonym of her husband.
By Cecile
is a sensational story of modern love and personal transformation.

“Madame Torres has reimagined a youthful Colette (here called Cecile) in the infinitely seductive post-World War II period in Paris, where she moves like a sleeping princess through the perverse fairy tales of man-made cafe society.
By Cecile
is a sharply perceptive novel.”

—Joan Schenkar, author of
The Talented Miss Highsmith

WOMEN'S BARRACKS

Tereska Torres

Afterword by Judith Mayne

Interview with the author by Joan Schenkar

eISBN: 9781558617148 | ISBN: 9781558614949

The grim setting of an urban military barracks—with its freezing dorms, rationed food, and unbecoming regulation underwear—became the setting for one of the steamiest novels of its time and the first-ever lesbian pulp. Written from the point of view of one of the younger and more innocent girl soldiers,
Women's Barracks
reflects Tereska Torres's experiences in the Free French forces assembled under General Charles de Gaulle. Condemned in 1952 for its “artful appeals to sensuality, immorality, filth, perversion, and degeneracy” by the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, this novel became an underground phenomenon, selling four million copies in the US and many more abroad.

“As a lesbian historian, as a citizen of a war-torn world, simply as a reader, I found this 1950 novel, considered obscene in its own time, moving, arousing, and deeply interesting.”

—Joan Nestle, author of
A Restricted Country

“
Women's Barracks
stands not only as a classic in our literary heritage, but as a fascinating view of the intensity and resilience of the lesbian spirit.”

—Radclyffe, author of
Sheltering Dunes

TERESKA TORRES
's
Women's Barracks
is widely considered to be the first lesbian pulp novel. It is based on her own experiences as a young woman in the Free French forces during WWII. Condemned in 1952, the novel became an underground phenomenon, selling over four million copies. Torres went on to write many more bestselling novels in France, which were often brought to an American audience by her husband, the author Meyer Levin. Torres lives in Paris, where she is completing her memoirs.

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