Another Kind Of Love is not any worse than any other lesbian pulp fiction I've read and yet some reviews for it are less than favorable. The thing about l.p.f. is that it both reminds modern lesbians that things have gotten much better and that some things (especially ostracization from family and friends) have sadly stayed the same.

Given the self-hatred so rampant in much of lesbian pulp and how much hate there still is out there for gays and lesbians, some of us still like, almost feel compelled, to read these titles. They can ring more true than today's romance novels that almost always end happily.

In Another Kind Of Love there are quotes that jump out at me. Besides these quotes, the doubt and self-recriminations the main character experiences get to me a lot.

-“People-starved,” Laura said aloud, “that’s what I was. Just plain people-starved.” She turned the phrase over in her mind and savored it as something significant. . . .

-Laura felt her throat constrict with sympathy. My God, that poor kid. She felt an overwhelming need to help Ginny, to offer her friendship, to take care of her.

-Home. It was an empty word when there was no love.

I'm also impressed by the writing itself...except for Sloane Britain, no other writer from this era and this genre has quite captured the sincerity and experience of what it must have been like back then.

Salacious-free and even somehow earnest, Another Kind of Love (it could have a better title) is not half bad.


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It's always difficult to review these old pulp novels, because they are definitely a product of their time. The misogyny and homophobia (even coming from the lesbian characters) can be off-putting, but I look at them as historical documents. It's amazing that such work was even published in the 1950s and 1960s.

There are two novels published in this collection: Another Kind of Love, and Love is Where You Find It.

ANOTHER KIND OF LOVE

Laura Garraway is having an affair with her boss, an unhappily married man. But after doing a piece for the magazine about the star Saundra Simons, Laura meets Ginny, a wannabe starlet who (she later learns) is also Saundra's lover. Laura and Ginny share a kiss and some stolen moments, but Ginny is focused on her career and advancing it in any way possible. Heartbroken, and given the opportunity to work in New York City (instead of Los Angeles), Laura flees. She meets Madeline, a divorcee who helps finance the magazine. Eventually, Laura has to decide who she wants to pursue: Walter (who is now getting a divorce), Ginny, or perhaps someone else...

This was the stronger of the two stories, and it definitely had a happier ending. I liked the character of Laura, and even though sometimes things happened just a little too conveniently, it was still a good read.

LOVE IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

Dee is in love with Rita, a wannabe starlet. And Rita is in love with Rita. Dee looks the other way when Rita dates (and presumably sleeps with) other men, but when she finds Rita in a compromising position with another woman, Dee has had it. She leaves for Paris for a work assignment, where she runs into an acquaintance - Martie. She has an affair with Martie, but Dee's heart is fixed on Karen, Dee's secretary. When Dee returns to New York, Karen seems ready to embark on a relationship with her, but this is Karen's first lesbian relationship, and Dee is convinced that their love will eventually fall apart. SPOILER ALERT (Which it does.) END SPOILER ALERT

This story was much darker than the first one. There is a lot of self-loathing here, especially when Dee is trying to convince Karen that she doesn't really "want" to be a lesbian. Dee thinks that what she does is "perversion," etc, etc. Reading this made me so glad that I wasn't born 50 years before I was. Being a lesbian in a rural area is hard enough, but if I need to find like-minded and/or accepting people, I can in the nearest big city. Imagine a world where practically everyone thinks you're a pervert. Ouch. ( )