His depiction of injustice done in the name of justice hits with added force for his lack of weeping or shouting. To homosexual readers tired of novels with a damned double-twist at the end and "scientific" studies thwarted by unproved premises, this book should be well worth the extra trouble it might take to order it. It can well join the very select list of books worth giving to friends or relatives who need a saner view of the subject.

THE OTHER MAN...

William Morrow & Co.

Lyn Pedersen

.. Donald J. West

It is always a pleasure to read a book that is realistic and balanced. When the work at hand is concerned with a subject that has reduced wise men to blatherskites and poets to prose, it is doubly rewarding. The library of sexual inversion is cluttered with tracts and polemics, each more unreasonable than the last. Dr. West is responsible for clearing a large and spacious room.

Dr. West is Registrar of the Psychiatric clinic at the Marlborough Day Hospital in London; he is also Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Social Psychiatry. He is not without some heavy bias for the Freudian school of psychoanalysis, but he is notably free of technical jargon in his writing or of pedantic opinion in his thought. While some of his book is particularly applicable in reference to his British context, it is not without interest here where similar situations may apply.

The first half of Dr. West's book is a brief re-statement of what is known about homosexuality today; its historic backgrounds in various cultures and its position in popular opinion today. While he does not deal in great detail with female homosexuality he makes it sufficiently clear that he feels this a field that requires more intensive investigation and research. The second half of the book, called "Cause and Cure," is a survey of modern methods of approach whether they be glandular or analytic to the origins and preliminaries to the problem. There is a bibliography of 160 technical items on which Dr. West has drawn and a further list of 23 novels he recommends.

It would be simple to wax enthusiastic and write a dull notice. It is more pleasant to quote Dr. West: "Homosexuality has its drawbacks, but at least it provides a workable adaptation to life. The Homosexual... does obtain satisfaction, both physical and emotional, and so long as he can bear with social disapproval, he achieves a passable adjustment." And again, ". . . We realise that they may serve the community usefully in other ways besides bringing up a family of their own."

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THE DEER PARK....

Putnam 1955

Norman Mailer

Readers of this periodical may remember Norman Mailer's controversial "The Homosexual Villain" earlier this year. The book with which Mr. Mailer was then concerned is now on the stands. It has to do with the film colony and the sexual mores of the colony, mostly on vacation in the desert.

Mr. Mailer is an accomplished writer, but if his picture of Hollywood is accurate, the life of the average homosexual is dull and humdrum indeed, for Mr. Mailer's characters desperately heterosexual are on a constant steeplechase; if they fall out of one bed they are falling into another.

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