Hi there, readers!

Welcome to Pulp and Pep, the online zine which explores two of my favorite literary genres: lesbian pulps, and teen girl romances from the 1950s. As you will discover in future issues, these two genres are like the couple in a classic Harlequin romance, apparent opposites who are actually meant to be together. The lesbians prowl the twilight world hoping to find some willing recipient for their twisted passions. The teen girls prowl the high school hallways, hoping to find a date to the prom. They share angst, almost bi-polar mood swings, and an obsessive pursuit of their respective romantic quests, often to the exclusion of practicalities like homework, or jobs.

The big difference is that in the pulps the characters got to have sex, whereas in the teen books sex was strictly verboten.

Big Wheels

I’ll kick off this first issue by talking about two big wheels on campus, two classics in their respective fields, pulp writer Ann Bannon and teen author Lenora Mattingly Weber. If I was going by chronology perhaps I’d start with Tereska Torres of Women’s Barracks fame, and Maureen Daly’s Seventeenth Summer. If I was going for quantity, I might start with Betty Cavanna; literary pretensions would mean Patricia Highsmith and Mary Stolz, and so on. However, since we’re revisiting the culture of the 1950s, we’ll use popularity as the starting point.

And boy, are these two popular. They’ve both managed to hit that elusive reading nerve, maybe because they cover every cliché in their genres and still project an air of utter sincerity. Despite how dated the books are (Beany Malone was published in 1948, Odd Girl Out in 1957) their lack of any special literary merit or critical acclaim, they remain in the zeitgeist. Maureen Corrigan mentioned reading the Beany Malones in her book, Leave Me Alone I’m Reading, while Ann Bannon is the topic of graduate theses with titles like, “Twilight Tales: Ann Bannon’s lesbian pulp series ‘The Beebo Brinker Chronicles.’” This paper promises “to theor[ize] the books hegemonic and subcultural social function, as well as providing close readings of their distinctive narrative techniques and effects.” I can’t wait!

Both Bannon and Weber are still in print and relatively easy to find. Ann Bannon’s books were reissued by Naiad Press in the 80s—remember those covers, with the blue silhouettes on white background? Since Naiad’s retirement Cleis has picked up the baton and reissued the whole series with retro covers. An aesthetic improvement, I think.

Most of Lenora Mattingly Weber’s oeuvre has been reissued by Image Cascade Publishing (again, with the original cover art). Image Cascade has made a business of reissuing popular teen authors from the 1950s, and Weber’s Beany Malone series was their debut. I bet they’re making a killing. Older editions of those books were going for big bucks on ebay and Abe.com, to people like myself who just wanted to reread an old favorite. When Image Cascade reissued them my older sister went and bought the whole series for what I spent on a nice hardcover of Something Borrowed, Something Blue. This, by the way, is the same sister who xeroxed the entire copy of the last Beany title, Come Back Wherever You Are and mailed it to me. We hadn’t known it existed, before she discovered it in the Boulder public library, where she was spending the summer. Kudos to you, Annie! I still reread that old xerox copy, still in its original mailing envelope.

And lastly, Ann Bannon’s books were turned into a theatre piece called The Beebo Brinker Chronicles which opened in NYC in 2007, and played recently in San Francisco. Rumors of an HBO deal have followed. Will Nickolodeon snatch up Beany? While we wait for the TV show, there are reports of a national Beany Malone fan club, still extant. I couldn’t detect a web presence; possibly they don’t have one (gasp!). More research needed.

Tomorrow: The Authors

Thank you for reading Pulp and Pep! please drop me a line to tell me what you think! This is a work-in-progress, and I feel a little like zinesters probably felt when they first tried to figure out Pagemaker. But the great thing is, if I publish a typo or get my facts wrong, I can fix it the next day!