Customer Reviews

Women in the Shadows

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.... I was initially offended by the violent overtones of the relationship between Laura and Beebo. However, reading the author's afterword opens some light into the nature of the darkness in this novel. Her preceding two novels in the series, Odd Girl Out, and Beebo Brinker, take an idealized and fantasized view of lesbian relationships. This novel attempts a more realistic approach to the real problems that plague relationships, including lesbian ones. The setting in which the book was written greatly affected the author, as homosexuality was indeed considered an unnatural, unhealthy affliction for the time period of the 1950s. While the characters display a desire to be 'normal' the author is unwavering in that they are, at the heart, gay, and no amount of wishing or trying can change that. While the female protaganist does indeed marry the gay male protaganist, she does NOT become romantically involved with him and maintains her defiant lesbianism throughout. This book explores themes no lesbian comtemporary author was doing at the time: interracial relationships, artificial insemination, domestic abuse, even femme-femme (as opposed to the proverbial butch-femme) attraction. ....

Women in Shadows is screwy to me at some point but i really like Ann Bannons' work . Its continuation of Laura marrying Jack Mann and having a baby. I love how the main character grew on her own way then while everything is all well and good then you realize she's still a human being and tend to make a whole lot of mistake.