Still, this was a time of extreme difficulty for gays and lesbians in the United States. But, by the time Bannon began publishing later in the decade, the outcome of several obscenity trials resulted in slight relaxations of this censorship, giving her the option of delivering more hopeful endings. Postal Service would refuse to deliver books if they depicted homosexuality in a positive light. Prior to Bannon's work, gay characters were generally required to meet a tragic end-either by suicide or mental breakdown. But Bannon's stories were set apart from other lesbian pulp novels of the day through their optimistic tenor. Although she had some suspicions of her own homosexuality during college, she-like many other young women at the time-expected that marriage would resolve those lingering doubts.Īfter reading two popular lesbian books-1928's The Well of Loneliness and 1952's Spring Fire-she decided to explore similar themes in her own writing. Immediately after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she married a young engineer and settled down to start a family in Philadelphia. It follows Laura, a young woman who moves to Greenwich Village and grapples with her recently discovered identity as a lesbian.Īnn Bannon, the author of I Am a Woman, did not live the free-spirited Greenwich Village life of her literary heroines. I Am a Woman, first published in 1959, is the second installment of the lesbian pulp fiction series, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles.
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