BOOKS

THE KISSING FISH, by Monique Lange, translated by Richard Howard. Criterion Books, Inc., $2.75. (Publication date, May 20th.)

There is a saying as old as the first cake ever baked, which everybody can quote to the effect that you cannot eat your cake and have it, too.

The cake, in this particular instance, is nothing less than Freedom, written with a capital F.

If we want Freedom in the full sense of the word, then we must be strong enough to face all the issues that freedom brings in its train. Among the most burning issues is the amount of knowledge of what goes on in the homosexual world. For, there is, and there is going to be, a special homosexual world as long as heterosexual beings shun homosexual participation to the wider life of society as a whole.

THE KISSING FISH. a book written by a normal (?) woman, and, therefore, completely unbiased, offers a first hand knowledge of a special segment of the homosexual world. the segment made up of virile boys loving effeminate youth, and effeminate youths loving virile boys. Other, and quite a few more, segments of this world do exist, but the author is particularly concerned with the truth about those two groups. The truth is what it is, and it will never hurt anybody; furthermore, if it is told in such a light, frothy, delightful, I would almost say, feminine, way like the way Monique Lange tells it, and like the translator evidently knew how to render into English from the original French, it becomes highly palatable and convincing.

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Summing up, Criterion Books Inc. deserves our compliments for publishing this light story of desire, love, death, and hope, just as the book deserves to be recommended to all those who like to read something which will teach them the truth not too painfully. -Mario Palmieri

CHRIST AND THE HOMOSEXUAL, by Robert W. Wood, 221 pp., 1960, $3.95.

The brevity of this review indicates no low estimation of the importance of this book which we feel to be one of the most remarkable that we have seen.

The author, a Congregational minister, puts forward the revolutionary thesis that homosexuals need the Christian Church, and the the Church in turn must come to accept the homosexual without expecting him to abandon the practice of his homosexuality! He sharply criticizes those otherwise charitable English religious spokesmen who feel that the homosexual isn't to blame for his sorry condition, but that he ought to remain a complete celibate. "We need to get to know the homosexual better, not by putting him under a microscope, but by becoming acquainted with him . . . As long as homosexuality remains in the category of 'sin' in the eyes of the Church, the homosexual will consider himself under oppression." And he squarely blames the Church for much of the prejudice and persecution under which homosexuals suffer.

"It has always been the responsibility of the Church to broaden horizons, challenge the status quo and, when necessary, alter social mores to enable God in Christ to work more effectively in the world."

Readers should not be deterred from this excellent and highly readable book by the introduction by Albert Ellis, nor by the author's own strong interest in the work and ideas of the Henry Foundation of New York. The author