Acquired Tastes XLIII: Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 188 - Avon Publications, Part 1 of 4

Acquired Tastes XLIII: 

Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 188

Avon Publications

Part 1 of 4

Avon Publications is one of the leading publishers of romance fiction. At Avon's initial stages, it was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. The shift toward romance novels occurred in the early 1970s with multiple Avon romance titles reaching and maintaining spots on bestseller lists, demonstrating the market and potential profits in romance publication. 

As of 2010, Avon became and remains an imprint of HarperCollins.

The interesting thing about Avon Publications is that they have always known the value of a gay audience, even back in the 1950's. This is particularly true in the 1970s when it comes to the imprint's support and proliferation of the bestselling books of Gordon Merrick, whose work we will take a look at in the final post of this series on Avon Publications.

I searched a number of archives held by university libraries - some of which are quite excellent (Cornell) and some were puzzling (Toronto - sorry, biographies, social studies, and theatrical plays do not qualify as gay pulp fiction). In any event, it all took way more time than I cared to spend, but down the rabbit hole I went. In the end, it was worth it, for I learned about several writers I was unfamiliar with and am not interested in reading.

I have decided to offer a mere sampling of the vintage gay-oriented titles Avon has offered throughout the years. If you happen to know of one or have a favorite Avon title I missed, please leave its title and author in the comments section. Keep in mind that there are at least three more posts regarding this imprint, and one of those will be dedicated to the works of Gordon Merrick. That said, I would love to track down more gay pulp fiction titles published by this imprint.

Today, we will take a look at select titles from the  40s and 50's.

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End As A Man

Author: Calder Willingham

Avon Publications

1947

Willingham's career began in controversy with End as a Man, an indictment of the macho culture of military academies, introducing his first iconic character, sadistic Jocko de Paris. The story included graphic hazing, sex, and suggested homosexuality.

 

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A Bitterweed Path

Author: Thomas Hal Phillips

Avon Publications

1949

T-83

Thomas Hal Phillips' novel tells the story of two boys growing up in the cotton country of Mississippi a generation after the Civil War. Originally published in 1950, the novel's unique interest lies in its subtle treatment of same-sex love across class lines. The Bitterweed Path vividly invokes life in Mississippi at the turn of the twentieth century. In elegant prose drawing on the Old Testament story of David and Jonathan, the author tells of the relationship between two boys - one a white sharecropper's son, the other the son of the wealthy land owner (a man whose own attentions complicate the plot when they fall upon his son's friend.) The Bitterweed Path does not sensationalize homosexuality but instead portrays it as part of a continuum of human behavior. The result is a book which challenges modern assumptions about the portrayal of gay men during the era before Stonewall.

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The Servant

Author: Robin Maugham 

Avon Publications

1949

233

Set in London just after the Second World War, Robin Maugham's slim, haunting novella is a confessional tale told in a simple, urgent voice by one Richard Merton. He tells the story of Tony, a close friend from the war, who breaking links with old friends  while steadily coming under the influence of his sinister new butler, Barrett. Concerned for his friend, Richard slowly uncovers a strange affair in which both class and sexual barriers have disintegrated into a dark abyss. Filmed in 1963 by Joseph Losey, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, and starring Dirk Bogarde and James Fox, The Servant is one of the key British films of the 1960s. 

Robin Maugham was a prolific author, a military officer, a barrister, and 2nd Viscount Maugham of Hartfield. In his autobiography, Escape from the Shadows, Maugham describes the three dark shadows of his his uncle W. Somerset Maugham, his father, and the guilt he suffered due to the "strict upper-middle-class moral convictions" which declared his homosexual desires to be perverse.

As a young man, Robin Maugham blackmailed his famous uncle W. Somerset Maugham by threatening to write a biography that exposed the great man's life. Appalled at the prospect, Somerset Maugham paid Robin an enormous sum of money not to write such a book. Having taken the money, Robin broke his promise, and immediately after his uncle’s death, published Somerset and All the Maughams. In the process, he violated WSM's lifelong desire for privacy by publicly 'outing' him as homosexual.  

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The Night Air

Author: Harrison Dowd

Avon Publications

1950

AT 52

Andy walked the streets, nervous and confused. He passed a man of sixty whose hair was dyed the color of oranges and whose lips were rouged. He stared at Andy. Andy shuddered and walked on. Would he end that way, would he spend his life tortured and smirked at? Must he spend his life as a homosexual?

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Queer Patterns

Brock, Lilyan

 Avon Bedside Novel 

Avon Publications

1951

(Digest Size)

(Paperback Size)

The first paperback edition of Brock's early lesbian romantic melodrama, originally published in 1935 and reissued by Avon with this classic cover illustration by famed Nancy Drew cover artist Rudy Nappi.  

Honey-haired, statuesque Sheila Case is a young actress who is drawn to women and finds many women attracted to her. These attractions can be intriguing, even useful, as Sheila works to further her acting career in the harsh and competitive theater world. Sheila knew she had a crush on Nicoli from the first moment she met her. Cool and deliberately sensual, Nicoli allowed the attraction to develop into a deeply passionate affair both women were powerless to control. Before long, though, the dangerous game Sheila is playing to advance her acting career threatens to trap her in the very web she has woven, and ensnare the pair of lovers in the glare of gossip, rumor and ostracization. Against the backdrop of the theatre world, Queer Patterns is a story of powerful attraction, passionate love and the lengths to which two women will go to protect it against all odds.

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Dark Passions Subdue

Author: Douglas Sanderson

Avon Publications

1952
AT-67

Stephen Hollis is a young college student living with his pious parents in the well-to-do Westmount suburb of Montreal. He is an attractive young man, intelligent, popular to a degree, but Stephen has a problem. His is also an insufferable, self-justifying snob who uses his intellect as a barrier against the world. Then he meets Fabien. Fabien is an impeccable bon vivant who lives in a large house with two young men, Duncan and Bill, where he entertains guests while dispensing his bon mots.

Stephen is immediately drawn to Fabien, but finds himself in a jealous triangle with Duncan, whom he sees as a rival for Fabien’s affections. Duncan had been in the war, and now seems to be living off Fabien. He drinks a lot, takes a lot of showers, and is writing a novel. Stephen hates him.

Bill also fought in the war, and, feeling protective of Duncan, he views Stephen’s intrusion in their household with mounting resentment. In this enclosed world, where everything revolves around the scintillating Fabien, delusions will be shattered and tragedy becomes inevitable.

 

Back Cover

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Strange Brother

Author: Blair Niles

Avon Publications

1952

 407

Strange Brother is a gay novel written by Blair Niles and published in 1931. The story is about a platonic relationship between a heterosexual woman and a gay man which takes place in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Mark Thornton, the story's protagonist, moves to New York City in hopes of feeling like less of an outsider. At a nightclub in Harlem, he meets and befriends June Westbrook. One night they witness a man named Nelly being arrested. June encourages Mark to investigate. This leads Mark to attend Nelly's trial, where he is found guilty and sentenced to six months' imprisonment on Welfare Island for his feminine affections and gestures. Next Mark researches the crimes against nature sections of the penal code. Shaken up by his findings and the events, Mark confesses his own homosexuality to June.

Mark and June's friendship continues to grow, and June introduces Mark to a number of friends in her social circle. Various social interactions ensue including a dinner party for a departing professor, a trip to a nightspot featuring a singer called Glory who sings Creole Love Call and attending a drag ball. Despite reading Walt Whitman's poetry collection Leaves of Grass, Edward Carpenter's series of papers Love's Coming of Age, and Countee Cullen's poetry, Mark is afraid to come out. Subsequently, Mark is threatened with being outed at work. In response to this threat, Mark commits suicide by shooting himself.

Back Cover

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The Last Of Mr. Norris

AKA: Mr. Norris Changes Trains

 Avon Publications

1952

 448

Mr. Norris Changes Trains (published in the US as The Last of Mr. Norris) is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood. Inspiration for the novel was drawn from Isherwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s, and the character of Mr. Norris is based on Gerald Hamilton. The book was critically and popularly acclaimed but years after its publication Isherwood denounced it as shallow and dishonest.

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The Other Side Of The Night

Author: Edmund Schiddel

Avon Publications

1954

Book blurb:

• Julie, the nymphomaniac heiress, who punished her impotent husband in strange and terrible ways
• Peter, an ex-Princetonian, too handsome for his own good
• Adrian, the wealthy homosexual, needing drugs to sharpen a jaded appetite
• Anastasie, whose lovers got younger as she got older
• Edwina, who weighed 400 pounds and got her kicks watching other people enjoy what she was denied
• Dusko, whose horribly disfigured face turned him into a sadistic monster

And all filled with the same desperate need for thrills which couldn't be satisfied.

Edmund Schiddel wrote controversial fiction dealing with the dark side of human nature. He set his novels in Bucks County, often focusing on the broadcast industry. Schiddel's most famous work was his Bucks County trilogy, which consists of The Devil in Bucks County, Scandal's Child, and The Good and Bad Weather. The first of these satirizes life in an artist's colony, presumably New Hope. The book ridicules the gossip, hypocrisy, and erotic lifestyle of Bucks Countians. The second novel of the trilogy focuses on a private school in the area, perhaps Lawrenceville. Common character types in Schiddel's novels include the successful Manhattan businessman who commutes to and from the city, the bored society wife, the reclusive artist, and the local resident. Many citizens of New Hope objected to Schiddel's picture of life along the Delaware River.

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 The Jungle Of Love

Sanderson, Douglas

Avon Publications

1955

 695

"If we were less tolerant of cruelty and more tolerant of illicit love the world might be a happier place."
- Robin Maugham, The Jungle of Love

A movie about an actress' life is in the works, but first the film studio must have permission from one of her ex-lovers in order to use his name and story. Known to be a bit of a recluse, all attempts to contact the man have failed. Sent to go visit him in person, and hopefully obtain permission, is a writer by the name of David Brent.. The man, a former diplomat is discovered living on an isolated farm in Africa. Slowly, bit by bit, readers learn exactly what happened between the diplomat and the actress which caused the man to quit his promising career and choose life in the jungle.

 

Back Cover

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And that's all for now.

Next week: more vintage titles from Avon Publications.

Thanks for reading.

 

Jungle Love - The Time