is finally brought back from her grief stricken state, and becomes astonishingly responsive to Frances' advances.

All is going beautifully until Erika discovers that Frances has a husband, a little detail that Frances has neglected to tell her. Then all bedlam breaks loose, with Vince, the peace maker, of course, in the middle laying the law down to both girls. Frances, nursing a bruised jaw from husband. Bill, has just left her husband "for good" and Vince calls her a "silly bitch" for being so slow. He calls Erika a "spoiled brat, full of self pity and little faith," and tells her its high time she grew up.

The story ends happily.

This novel by Miss Taylor is written in excellent taste-it is a love story, not a sex story, and much good philosophy and help can be gleaned by anyone, but especially the lesbian reader. For instance a friend of Frances says to her, "I honestly don't think an unhappy marriage ever made a lesbian out of any girl. It just brings out what's already there." And where Frances says in reflection, "as fas as she was concerned, it wasn't the years with Bake that were evil, but the return to unlove."

Frances is also clear-minded enough to not blame everything on Bill, her husband. She recognizes, at last, that he really is a "nice guy" doing the best he can, but the problem is that she is a lesbian, and, therefore, she simply cannot be happy with any man, regardless. No man, she is convinced now, can ever really satisfy her yearning for love.

Valerie Taylor's Return To Lesbos is refreshingly different from most lesbian novels. It is sane and sincereand to use a very old fashioned word— it is sweet. The characters therein found are not perfect, but where in human nature are people perfect? Moreover, it is well written.

Thus with its positive approach and

one

fluid prose, Valerie Taylor's Return To Lesbos bids fair to become one of the memorable milestones along the road of lesbian literature!

Geraldine Jackson

GENET: A DEFENCE-

It scarcely seems possible that in this day and in this journal it should be necessary to protest at a proposal that can only be called censorship. In ONE for March, 1964, was reprinted (in translation of course) a short essay on Genet from Der Kreis. A shorter preface alleged that it was timely, even so long after it was first written, and necessary, in view of the recent critical enthusiasm shown for the works of this author. Both these statements I protest.

To clear the air I must first state that these works, including Notre dame des fleurs, seem to me deeply moving. This doubtless places me among the "strongly perverted" and I freely admit to an erotic response, in the deepest sense, a response of all the emotions. If the condemnation had been made on literary grounds or in accordance with an openly stated system of censorship, I should have disagreed but would not have felt bound to reply. There is a case against the shocking, well put, incidentally, by Jacques Barzun in his recent book Science: the glorious entertainment, there is also a case for withholding meat from babes, but there is no case for condemning a work of literature on social grounds alone. M. Bernard seems in fact to be wholly concerned with the untimeliness of publication and the unpleasantness likely to result from such a depiction of homosexuality.

How often people have said the time is not ripe, how often have they offered to the revolutionary counsels of caution. The time is never right. unless you want it to be and make it