A dissatisfied Beebo begins to miss Paula. Venus, in turn, divulges her past loves with men and women and seduces Beebo.Īs Venus rehearses for a television show, Beebo learns her new precarious place at her ranch in California negotiating around Venus' business-minded husband, her public persona, and her vulnerable son. Beebo is infatuated and unnerved by Venus, who proposes that Beebo join them to return to California as company for her son - and to bridge the gap between them. She is roused a couple days later to make a delivery to the apartment of an outrageous movie star, Venus Bogardus, who lives with her lonely teenaged son whom Beebo befriends. He escorts her to several gay bars in the Village where she is astonished and touched by what she recognizes in herself.Īfter being treated cruelly by a vindictive woman playing a game with Pete, Beebo happens upon Paula one evening at her apartment, and it is Paula who verifies Beebo's sexuality. When she admits her frank admiration for a woman she sees, Jack tells her about lesbians, and she reacts with obvious fascination.

Jack also allows Beebo to live with him until she gets on her feet, and allows her the time and space to ask the questions he knows she needs to ask. Jack helps Beebo get a job delivering pizzas (one of the advantages is that she can wear pants) for Pete, who is a little creepy, and his wife who cooks. Beebo is clearly welling up with a terrible secret that forced her to move east, and guilt that comes with leaving her father alone.

Beebo is 18 years old, tall and handsome, vacillating between overconfidence and vulnerability after leaving her family's farm in Wisconsin. Jack Mann finds Beebo Brinker (real name Betty Jean - she was unable to pronounce it as a child) wandering the streets of New York City's Greenwich Village. The painting on the first edition cover is by Robert McGinnis. Lesbian pulp fiction books usually showed suggestive art with obscure titles that hinted at what the subject matter was inside. However, in the order of the events and characters in the series, Beebo Brinker takes place several years before Odd Girl Out does.Īs Bannon explained in the 2001 edition foreword to Odd Girl Out, Gold Medal Press publishers had control over the cover art and the title. In the order of the series, it follows Journey to a Woman. Although this is the last in the series, it is set first - a prequel to the others. Each edition was adorned with a different cover. It was originally published in 1962 by Gold Medal Books, again in 1983 by Naiad Press, and again in 2001 by Cleis Press. It is the last in a series of pulp fiction novels that eventually came to be known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. Beebo Brinker is a lesbian pulp fiction novel written in 1962 by Ann Bannon (pseudonym of Ann Weldy).

Beebo brinker by ann bannon