BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Notices and reviews of books, articles, plays and poetry dealing with homosexuality and the sex variant. Readers are invited to send in reviews or printed matter for review.

MAN ON A PENDULUM .

American Press, $3.50

Dr. Israel Gerber

Dr. Israel Gerber is a distinguished young rabbi who has done some work in the field of psychiatry. In his new book, Man on a Pendulum, subtitled A Case History of an Invert by a Religious Counselor, he falls somewhere between the confessional and the couch.

John Collins, Dr. Gerber's subject (one is tempted to say hero) has led a rather more active sexual life than most when he comes in all his unhappiness before Dr. Jeremiah Tanner (presumably Dr. Gerber). Despite the changed names one has the feeling that Dr. Gerber is quoting rather precisely in the long sections where the subject is speaking of past experience. John Collins' attempts to describe his rejection by men of God, his descriptions of evenings on the prowl, all come alive with a rather unpleasant authenticity and apparent accuracy. But the book is presented as a study of a homosexual's cure and it is here that one becomes uncomfortable.

The disparity between the hope held out by Dr. Gerber and the case as stated by 'John Collins' is too great to accept without reservations. In no placc is there any explanation that the homosexual life led by Collins is a substitute for heterosexuality; one feels that Mr. Collins has made no attempt to understand himself. Nor does one feel that in turning to a life of active and constant heterosexuality will Mr. Collins make anything more of himself than he has before. The sore may disappear from one part of the body but there is an uncomfortable feeling it may break out elsewhere, perhaps in a more dramatic fashion. Perhaps Mr. Collins is learning how to live with other people. When does he learn to live with himself?

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