Acquired Tastes XLIII: Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 219 - Gold Medal Books

Acquired Tastes XLIII:

Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 219

Gold Medal Books

Gold Medal Books, launched by Fawcett Publications in 1950, was an American book publisher known for introducing paperback originals, a publishing innovation at the time. 

In 1949 the company had negotiated a contract with New American Library to distribute their Mentor and Signet titles. This contract prohibited Fawcett from publishing their own paperback reprints. Roscoe Kent Fawcett wanted to establish a line of Fawcett paperbacks, and he felt original paperbacks would not be a violation of the contract.

And so Fawcett announced Gold Medal Books, their line of paperback originals to be sold at 25 cents a pop. He set up shop with William Lengel as editor and art director Al Allard, who had been employed with Fawcett since 1928. Beginning their numbering system at 101, Gold Medal got underway, publishing 35 titles in 1950 and 66 titles in 1951.

Sales soared, prompting Ralph Daigh, Fawcett's Editor-In-Chief, to comment, "In the past six months we have produced 9,020,645 books, and people seem to like them very well." However, hardcover publishers resented Roscoe Fawcett's innovation, as evidenced by Doubleday's LeBaron R. Barker, who claimed that paperback originals could "undermine the whole structure of publishing." Hardcover publisher's were not the only media to feel Fawcett's sting. Writing about the demise of pulp magazines, Ron Goulart observed, "Fawcett dealt another blow to the pulps when, in 1950, it introduced its Gold Medal line. What Gold Medal specialized in was original novels. Some were merely sleazy, but others were in a tough, hard-boiled style that seemed somehow more knowing and more contemporary than that of the surviving pulps." This innovation also, at times, tested the publisher's relationship with literary agents. Literary agent Donald MacCampbell stated that one publisher "threatened to boycott my agency if it continued to negotiate contracts with original 25-cent firms."

Gold Medal books published Westerns, Mystery/Adventure Stories, and non-fiction fare such as The Flying Saucers Are Real by Donald E. Keyhoe. They also published the first lesbian pulp novel Women's Barracks by Tereska Torrès (later to be followed by Marijane Meaker's Spring Fire, and Ann Bannon's Beebo Brinker Chronicles). They also touched on the subject of male homosexuality, in the typical style of the time - exploiting the subjects seamy side before making sure the protagonist paid a price for his perversion.

Gold Medal Books went out of business. In 1975.

Below are the gay male and lesbian titles I could locate. If you know of any that should be included, please let me know in the comments section. I've included the lesbian titles because of their historic value.

--- ---

Women's Barracks

Author: Tereska Torrès

Gold Medal Books

1950

Tereska Torrès was a French writer credited for the first "original paperback bestseller." - selling over two million copies in its first five years. It was a fictional account of her time serving in the Free French Services. In total, four million copies of the book were sold in the United States, and it was translated into 13 different languages. In 1952, the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials used Women's Barracks as an example of how paperback books promoted moral degeneracy. And in 2008, historians credited the republished book as the first pulp fiction book published in America to candidly address lesbian relationships, although Torrès did not agree with this analysis.

--- ---

Men Into Beasts

Author: George Sylvester Viereck

Gold Medal Books

(1952)

George Viereck was born in Germany, to a German father and American-born mother. His father Louis, born out of wedlock to German actress Edwina Viereck, was reputed to be a son of Kaiser Wilhelm I. In 1904, while still in college, he published his first collection of poetry. In 1907, he published a second collection which brought him national fame. A number were written in the style of the Uranian male love poetry of the time.

Between 1907 and 1912, he became a Germanophile, publishing several books on German History.

By 1920, he was a close friend of Nicola Tesla and was the most instrumental in inducing Tesla to work with the German rocket scientists. He also interviewed Hitler in1923. By 1941, Viereck had become a well-known Nazi apologist. An attempt to set up a publishing house in the U.S. without proper declaration (registering as a Nazi agent) resulted in his arrest and a subsequent five-year prison sentence (1942-1947).

Viereck's memoir of life in prison, Men into Beasts, was published as a paperback original by Fawcett Publications in 1952. The book is a general memoir of discomfort, loss of dignity, and brutality in prison life. The front matter and backcover text focuses on the situational homosexuality and male rape described in the book (witnessed, not experienced, by Viereck). The book, while a memoir, is thus the first original title of 1950s gay pulp fiction, an emerging genre in that decade.

Incidentally, Viereck also published one of the first known gay vampire novels The House of the Vampire (1907). Not only is this one of the first known gay vampire stories, but it is also one of the first psychic vampire stories, where a vampire feeds off more than just blood.

--- ---

Spring Fire

Author: Vin Packer

Gold Medal Books

(1952)

Vin Packer was a pseudonym used by writer Marijane Meaker. She also wrote similar fare under the names M.E. Kerr and Ann Aldrich. She, along with Tereska Torrès, was credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre, the only accessible novels on that theme in the 1950s. Cleverly, Meaker began her career posing as a literary agent representing the work of her various pseudonyms.

--- ---

Whisper His Sin

Author: Vin Packer

Gold Medal Books

(1954)

--- ---

Man Divided

Author: Dean Douglas

Gold Medal Books

Man Divided

1954

Some attribute this book to author Douglas Dean Goodman, though he never claimed it as his.

--- ---

Odd Girl Out

Author: Ann Bannon

Gold Medal Books

1957

Odd Girl Out was published in 1957, and became Gold Medal Books' second best-selling title of the year. At that time, Bannon lived in Greenwich Village. She recalls:

"I would sit there (in a gay bar) in the evenings thinking, 'What if (a police raid) happens tonight and I get hauled off to the slam with all these other women?' I had been extremely low profile, very proper, very Victorian wife. I know that sounds crazy in the 60s, but I was raised by my mother and grandmother, who really came out of that era, and talk about a rigid role-playing crowd! I couldn't imagine living through it. I just couldn't. I thought, 'Well, that would do it. I'd have to go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.' As easy as it might be if you were a young woman in today's generation to think that was exaggerating, it wasn't. It was terrifying."

Ann Bannon (Ann Weldy) , is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as 'The Beebo Brinker Chronicles'. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title 'Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction'. Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.

Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and, as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society. They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an award-winning Off-Broadway production. They are taught in women's and LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian".

Ann Bannon

I Am A Woman 

(In Love With A Woman - Must Society Reject Me?)

Author: Ann Bannon

Gold Medal Books

1959

The resolution to I Am a Woman completely flouted the trends of miserable lesbian fiction endings, which made Bannon a hero to many lesbians.

Women In The Shadows

Author: Ann Bannon

Gold Medal Books

1959

Women in the Shadows was also published in 1959 and proved very unpopular with Bannon's readers. The book examined interracial relationships, self-loathing in matters of sexuality and race, alcoholism, jealousy, violence. Bannon, herself, was experiencing a bit of a rough patch, ultimately suffering a nervous breakdown. "I couldn't stand some of what was happening to me–but Beebo could take it. Beebo really, in a way, had my nervous breakdown for me... I think I was overwhelmed with grief and anger that I was not able to express," she recalled later.

Journey To A Woman

Author: Ann Bannon

Gold Medal Books

1960

Beebo Brinker

Author: Ann Bannon

Gold Medal Books

1962

This, the final book in the series, is actually a prequel to the first book in the series, Odd Girl Out. This is Bannon's final book. She stopped writing because her of her husband's disapproval. And the more she tried to engage with the lesbian community, the more difficult he made life for her.

--- ---

The Marriage

Author: Ann Bannon

Gold Medal Books

1960

Bannon's fifth novel was published between 1960's Journey To A Women and 1962's Beebo Brinker, and, while it does include two of the characters from the series, both gay, it is not considered part of that series. Set in Greenwich Village, it concerns a young married couple who discover they are brother and sister.

--- ---

And that's all for now.

Next week: more tantalizing titles from another vintage gay pulp fiction imprint..

Until then...

Thanks for reading.

Odd Girl Out - Richard Barone and Jill Sobule