homosexual act might be considered a misdemeanor and the maximum penalty might be a 50 dollar fine or 30 days in jail, or some such thing, while the, same offense in another state may draw even up to life imprisonment. MODERATOR: Really, I didn't know that the law was ever as severe as that. Has that ever been enforced, or is that just a law on the statute books, do you happen to know?

MR. CALL: I dare say there are cases where many of these laws have been enforced, clear up to the maximum penalty. Very often, and this is a very good thing I think, the maximum penalties are not being invoked as often as they were, say 20 years ago. We are coming forward that much. Some states have relieved the penalty somewhat. New York has been a leader there, I believe, and so has New Jersey. However, even after Dr. Karl Bowman, of the Langley-Porter Clinic in San Francisco, made a very wonderful report and series of recommendations to our state legislature in California, about three years ago, the recommendations have been shelved and not long before that report was made, I believe, some of the penalties for homosexual acts in this state were even increased from what they were a few years ago. MODERATOR: And Dr. Bowman's recommendations,—could you give those briefly?

MR. CALL: I would hesitate to do that. I know that Dr. Bowman said in the conclusion of his report that as times change and as our attitudes change as we become more informed about what we are here on this earth, maybe some of our standards need to be very seriously examined and if our old attitudes and standards are found wanting then perhaps we should do something about it. In essence he did recommend that our legislature go over the whole sex offenses section of our penal code and bring them up to date in the light of what science has discovered, particularly in the last 10 years since the advent of Dr. Kinsey's study on the human male, which came out in 1948. MODERATOR: And nothing has been done about that report? MR. CALL: Not in this state, to my knowledge.

MODERATOR: I think that a number of issues have been raised which perhaps will call for further discussion. I am very grateful to you all for coming along today. Thank you, very much.

(The second part of the radio transcript, "The Homosexual in Our Society," will appear in the next issue. It will feature Karl M. Bowman, M.D., professor emeritus, University of California School of Medicine; David Wilson, Ph.D., School of Criminology and Frank A. Beach, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, both from the University of California, and Attorney Morris Lowenthal of San Francisco. Mrs. Elsa Knight Thompson of KPFA is again the moderator. The second part deals primarily with the role of society in accepting the homosexual as a human being.)

28

mattachine REVIEW

BOOKS

GATEWAY TO TOMORROW by Jerry Pez zella. New York: Vantage Press, 1960. 163 Pages, $2.95. Reviewed by. C. V. Howard.

Want to acquire a book that's almost certain to become a collector's item? Then run-don't walk-to the nearest source of supply and get a copy of "Gateway to Tomorrow." In this volume Jerry Pezzella has written the supreme corn classic of the twentieth century—a book so superbly bad that it is actually delightful. The hazard of the typesetters laughing themselves to death precludes any possibility of there ever being a reprint. So grab your copy now while it's available. I'm serious it's marvelous reading both for yourself and any friends who have both a sense of humor and the intelligence of a small dog.

How to describe this book? Well, let's do it this way. Close your eyes and visualize a Grandma Moses painting. Got it? Now visualize the way she probably would, if she had never seen one, portray a million dollar estate. How would she do it? Most likely she would simply enlarge and embellish everything with her ideas of lavish wealth. The barns would probably be huge and decorated with Gothic arches and what not. The house would be a vastly enlarged farm house -probably done in gold leaf-and with an ornate pump conveniently placed just outside the back door. The privy would be a thing of beauty with stained glass windows and with

a jewelled birdhouse perched jauntily on the roof. The ladies would still be farm ladies but they'd be gowned in expensive materials-neatly protected by well-starched aprons. Got the picture? Then let's get back to Jerry Pezzella and his book.

Gateway to Tomorrow is, according to the jacket "a story of extramarital sin in a luxurious Connecticut milieu"' and Jerry portrays both sin and luxury in a vivid Grandma Moses manner. Luxury is described much as one would who had never experienced anything more elaborate than an abandoned boxcar. His idea of sin appears to have been derived from the latelate TV movies of the twenties. God only knows where he received inspiration for dialogue for certainly no one, particularly in the heated bedroom' scenes, has ever spoken as Jerry makes his characters speak.

The plot? Sure there's a plot. But off-hand I don't recall much about it. And it doesn't much matter anyway for you'll be too engrossed in learning how life is lived in the rarified atmosphere of the luxurious Connecticut milieua as Grandma-pardon me, I mean as Jerry portrays it. There's sex, I recall that, of both hetero and homo varieties in copious quantities and graphically detailed. There is a sexy heroine-WOW!!!! There is a lethargic, sedentary and elderly (forty-six, by the way) husbandugh!!!! There is an Adonis-like gardner who is right out of Lady Chatterly's Lover-MAN!!!! These are the characters who hit it off in a hetero manner, both frequently and energeti29