the essence of his friendship, that his friend lived in him.

In the same way he plumbs the depths of criminality, of homosexuality and emerges on the other side more deeply engaged in humanity than ever. The reader must make the same plunge into a world fetid, obscene, yet meaningful and pitiful as no other. To those unwilling to let go of themselves it will remain just obscene. Yes, the words are unclean if you think them so, but I found them often truer than any others to express the whole fleshy range of love. I have not read any of these works in English and this may affect my judgement, but in French the words themselves seem less terrible than say comparable words in English in the work of Burroughs. Nevertheless it is safe to say that they can be no more shocking than many of our thoughts and this is perhaps where people are most upset the picture becomes too exact and they prefer the hazier outline

which allows them to ignore the crude, thrusting reality of being. If we cannot all say that we enjoy this sort of writing, and there is no reason why all should, let us at least not complain that others have found it both remarkable and evocative. Remember that long ago Gide complained (see his Journals, vol. 2, p. 267, Knopf ed.) that Proust had presented a grotesque and abject view of homosexuals, but Proust explained that what others found grotesque delighted him, and there seems to be no reason to suppose that this fact has adversely affected the attitude towards homosexuals. Suppression has never been the way to truth and understanding, and I should be sorry to see any suggestion that ONE or any other group was trying to cultivate a polite image at the expense of reality, to offer, in short, a writer of genius as a sacrifice in the hope of achieving a factitious co-existence.

BOOKSERVICE

M. S. M.

For Members Only

THE GRAPEVINE by Jess Stearn, Doubleday, 1964, 372 pp., $4.95

The Grapevine is subtitled A Report on the Secret World of the Lesbian. It is mainly a report on interviews with lesbians and a chapter on the DOB's 1962 convention and a chapter on Ladder and the organization. Those who have read The Sixth Man, also written by Stearn, will know what to expect.

DEATH RIDES A CAMEL, a biography of Sir Richard Burton by Allen Edwardes, Julian Press, 1963, 422 pp., $6.50

Readers may now relive that lusty life with the "wild man of Mecca" in Allen Edwardes' new romantic biography, Death Rides A Camel, which tells the story of the whole man, "without fig leaf or fantasy." Readers will immediately recognize that this book, on the man who went to Africa and Arabia and had such an exciting life, is by the author of Jewel in the Lotus. LOST ON TWILIGHT ROAD by James Colton, National Library, 1964, $1.00

This paperback novel is by ONE Magazine writer James Colton, author of the story "Red Leaves" in the March issue. Lost on Twilight Road is similiar to much of Colton's work that has appeared in ONE Magazine and is well-written and is a rare thing in this day with its happy ending of a young man's search for homosexual happiness in a heterosexual world. OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS by Jean Genet, Grove Press, 1963, 318 pp., $6.50

Jean Genet is author of such works as The Balcony and The Blacks. Our Lady of the Flowers, composed in the solitude of a prison cell, was Genet's first work. See reviews in December, 1963 and March, 1964 ONE Magazines.

Remittance must accompany all orders. Add 25c for shipping costs, tax in Calif.

Mail orders to: ONE, Inc. 2256 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles 6, California

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