front on a paperback original from a lower rate publishing house hides a really good book or at least a very intriguing story. The 1960 Chariot Book, THE PARK JUNGLE, by Robert Chessman (Hyman Lindsey), is an excellent example. The setting of the story is possibly more important than the action since Central Park in New York is an endless source of fictional recreation.

Among the good, bad and indifferent men and women whose lives cross and touch in this explosive little book are several homosexuals--all very well-drawn. They range from sensitive men who look for love in literal shadows_among the "chino" boys to possibly more discerning men who look for love in less tight-fitting pants. There are also good portraits fo the rough trade--a psychotic killer--a switch hitter. Sadly, this book is now hard to locate--but it is well worth searching your second-hand sources to locate it.

Sometimes a book hides itself by containing dual explosive issues. When this happens, the more volatile facets of the book tend to overshadow the other part or parts. Clifton Cuthbert's 1933 novel, THUNDER WITHOUT RAIN, Godwin, 1933, has been reprinted 10 times as THE SHAME OF MARY QUINN by Pyramid Books and is frequently available on newsstands. Primarily it concerns incest between a Catholic brother and sister, Peter and Mary Quinn. Into their relationship comes John, the dapper and somewhat mysterious man. Almost at once John becomes an influence on Mary although it is quite clear that he and Peter are homosexual lovers. John admits (obliquely) that his interest in Mary in that she is pregnant with Peter's child and he refers to his interest in Mary as a "new vice." Peter leaves home to become a priest and Mary goes to live with John. She soon adopts a series of new male lovers, one of them named Joseph. In a fit of madness she murders John and later in confessing to her brother, Peter, he becomes enraged and kills her. The religious symbolism coupled with the incest has all but obscured the strong homosexual" aspects in the book and it is virtually unknown for this particular subject. It is a very powerful, disturbing, and interesting book, well worth reading.

Despite the advice, literary and factual, of “you can't mattachine REVIEW

go home again"--Robert Loomis goes back after 15 years to Carthage to unearth the secrets of his past in Thomas Curley's novel, IT'S A WISE CHILD, Putnam, 1960 (also as THE CROOKED ROAD, Avon, 1961.) There he finds a history of corruption, intrigue and bastardy but he also finds love with a girl who seems to meet his needs. He is helped and aided by Professor Herbert Lampson, a dear friend and tormentor, with whom he has had a homosexual affair. It is a good and major portrait of an admirable man whose influence on the more or less heterosexual protagonist is entirely beneficial. Herb Lampson's role is second only to the hero's role.

Roy Doliner's wise novel of the theatre and adjacent worlds, YOUNG MAN WILLING, Scribner's, 1960, Fawcett, Crest, 1961, contains several interesting homosexual portraits. The reviews were poor but undeservedly so--the usual fate of the "arty" novel. Bubber Frick, Broadway director, is a compelling portrait of a man driven by his love for a worthless boy, actor Tony Amali. It is a credit to Doliner that the handling of the fate of Tony and his affair with Bubber progresses logically from mutual attraction to mutual misery and back to a working compromise far more realistic than usually found in novels. It is true that Bubber's physical love for the boy at first reduces him to a blubbering fool; but the believable change to where Bubber controls Tony is far more realistic since the myth of weakness in the male homosexual is seldom true. Every fool knows that the rail-splitter is subjective to the lace petticoat and, even as Bubber thinks like a girl in bed, he also knows how to handle Tony out of bed. One in the eye for the stereotypists.

HARRISON HIGH, by John Farris, Rinehart, 1959, Dell, 1960, contains several minor specific instances of homosexuality; but, far more importantly, it contains a subtle relationship between an apprentice butcher, Chris Proud, and a high school boy, Griff Rimer. There is little doubt that both boys are exuberantly heterosexual in life, but there is equally little doubt that their effect upon one another is phallic and undeniably homosexual.

It is clear that one column will not stretch to include all of the overlooked and under-rated titles of value. I'll try to devote a future column to this theme soon.