Coming Out Party

New York: Tower Publications, 1965.
First Edition.

17.5cm x 10.5cm. 156, [4] pages. Illustrated wrappers.

Original Midwood paperback. “Kimberley Kemp” is attributed to Gilbert Fox, who used the name (along with Dallas Mayo) for his lesbian pulp fiction at Midwood, reserving Paul V. Russo for his heterosexual novels for the same house. This tale centred on a young houseguest drawn into an intimate arrangement with her hosts. One of the many lesbian pulp novels produced in the mid to late 20th century. Often formulaic and issued in easily recognisable series with suggestive covers and titillating titles, the genre was written largely by male authors under female pseudonyms for a male readership, though a smaller number of authors, some of them lesbian or bisexual women writing under similar pseudonyms, brought more narrative sincerity and psychological depth to the same commercial format. The genre as a whole ranges from outright formulaic titillation to more literary treatments of lesbian relationships within the constraints of the paperback original.

Minor shelf wear to lower panel. Near Fine Condition.

AU$150