BOOKS T

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.

WINGER'S LANDFALL, by Stuart Lauder, London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1962, 272 pp. Why did Danny Sparrow, bellboy on the British passenger liner Cyclamen, jump or fall over the stern rail to his death just a day before the ship docked in England after a voyage from Australia? His half-brother Harry Shears wants to know. Shears, a Merchant Navy winger (steward), boards the Cyclamen for its next trip to ferret out the answer. The voyage is a long one, complicated by a tangle of human relations, and Harry's search is confusing and confused. Does he find the answer? He thinks so. Does he avenge Danny's murder? In a way. But the story is bitter and the ending is bitter.

The book's tone is set, as it should be, by Harry's own inner nature. He is a man capable of considerable selfloathing, and therefore of disgust with, and distrust of, others. Yet he has a wry sense of humor and is a shrewd and sometimes compassionate judge of human nature. The harsh realities. of his existence born and raised in a ferocious London slum

have so warped him that he is not always capable of grappling with the complexities of the problem he has set himself. This is only natural: each of us has his limitations.

However, Stuart Lauder has not controlled his story and for this there is not the same excuse. Common sense tells the reader, very early in the book, that Harry's fumbling, tension-ridden

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search is needless. By taking his suspicions to admiralty authorities and asking them to question the crew of the Cyclamen concerning Danny's disappearance overboard, Harry could have solved his problem neatly and with dispatch. What prevented his doing this? That he was a relation of the dead boy would have been ample justification. But, of course, then there would have been no story to tell.

And admittedly the story of what goes on in the stewards' and bellboys' quarters aboard a big British passenger liner is quite a tale. In the first place, homosexuality is rife. There are, to begin with, the flaming queens. Several of these always referred to by author Lauder as "she" are very successfully drawn. Diamond Lil nee Derek is especially vivid as the ruling queen who is also an intelligent and well-read man, the victim of his own sexual maladjustment.

Then there are the beefy, brawny toughs who sling the heavy loads of food, dishes, and garbage, in the kitchens, and enjoy the attentions of the faggot group. There are the boys like Marty, an ex-Guardsman, good-looking, clean-cut, who keep up a pretense of heterosexual adjustment while actually getting more than just laughs from association with the gay crowd. Then there are the lone wolves, like Harry Shears himself, who is homosexual, but keeps quiet about it. Finally, of course, there are the bellboys, supposedly protected by strict com-

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