LESBIAN PULP FICTION 1

Lesbian pulp fiction refers to any mid-20th century pulp novel with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same publishing houses that other subgenres of pulp fiction including Westerns, Romances, and Detective Fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference people (lesbian and otherwise) had for modeling what lesbians were. Stephanie Foote, from the University of Illinois commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read. The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes...Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone."
Writer Donna Allegra explained why she purchased them in saying, "No matter how embarrassed and ashamed I felt when I went to the cash register to buy these books, it was absolutely necessary for me to have them. I needed them the way I needed food and shelter for survival."
Pulp fiction novels got their name from the cheap wood pulp paper they were printed on (note: the pulp fiction novels of the 1950s and 60s evolved out of the pulp magazines of earlier decades). These books were sold at drugstores, magazine stands, bus terminals and other places where one might look to purchase cheap, consumable entertainment. The books were small enough to fit in a purse or back pocket and cheap enough to throw away when the reader was through with it. (en.wikipedia.org)