Ann Bannon
Odd Girl Out (1957)
Author: Ann Bannon
Genre: Romance (lesbian/bisexual)
Plot Summary:
When Laura starts college, she meets Beth, a charming, exciting, and uncoventional woman who is immediately taken with Laura and invites her to join a sorority and become Beth's, and her friend Emily's, third roommate. Laura accepts and finds herself more and more taken with Beth. She realizes that she is not interested in men, instead she is falling in love with Beth, although she keeps these feelings very secret. Beth shares Laura's disinterest in dating males and has feelings for Laura as well. Beth and Laura have several secret sexual encounters. All the while Emily encourages both women to find boyfriends. However, things change when Beth meets Charlie, a man who becomes obsessed with Beth. Beth realizes that she has true feelings for Charlie, that she is in love with him while her feelings for Laura were only deep love on a non-sexual level. Laura becomes more and more agitated and jealous as she must watch Beth fall in love with Charlie right before her eyes. The school term ends and Laura and Beth part ways. Before Laura leaves she forgives Beth for hurting her and looks to the future.
Geographical Setting: University of Illinois
Time Period: 1957, present day
Series: Book #1 of the 5-book Beebo Brinker Chronicles
Appeal Characteristics:
Odd Girl Out is one of the first romance novels that includes a lesbian storyline. The novel also includes a bisexual storyline as Beth is truly interested in both Laura and Charlie at different points in the story. The book is contemporary to its time (1957) and includes dialogue that uses 50's slang words. The story includes mainly interior action as the third person narrator enters the minds of the main three characters, Beth, Laura, and Charlie. The novel also includes a lot of dialogue and very little narrative exposition. The story is slow-paced, although there is much suspense regarding the feelings that Beth and Laura have for one another and whether or not their secret affair will be found out. In this way, the feelings of the main characters completely comprise the plot of the story. The reader is extremely close to the feelings of the main characters, who are very realistic and flawed. There are very few total characters in the story and, although Beth, Laura, and Charlie comprise the main three characters, all of the names mentioned are related and tied into the entire story. There is no literal description of sexual activity in the novel. Sexual acts are very subltely alluded to. Aside from the college setting, no other aspects of the story's environment are mentioned. Odd Girl Out reads as a very honest and realistic story of the complexity of sexual relationships between college-aged people. Aside from some stilted language and a few awkward, under-described changes in characters' feelings, the characters are convincing and their actions are believable and compelling.
Read-alikes: Try Ann Bannon's Beebo Brinker because, although it is the final installment of her Beebo Brinker Chronicles, it is meant to be a pre-quel to Odd Girl Out and has emerged, among serious Ann Bannon fans, as the most enjoyable book of the series. If the reader prefers to follow the character of Laura, read Beebo Brinker Chronicles book #2, I am a Woman by Bannon, which picks up where Odd Girl Out left out and follows Laura to New York City. Also try Vin Packer’s Spring Fire because it is also a story about two women in a college sorority house who are sexually attracted to each other. This book, written in 1952, is actually considered the very first lesbian romance. Try Valerie Taylor and Lisa Walker’s The Girls in 3-B, because it was written in the late 1950’s and is also focuses on college-aged women who have sexual encounters with one another. However, this title also includes the bisexual appeal element of Odd Girl Out, as the women have relationships with men as well and compare these relationships to their encounters with women. Also try March Hastings’s Three Women because it was written in 1958, as a pulp novel, and tells the story of a doomed lesbian love affair between two characters, Byrne and Greta. They, like Laura and Beth, strive to keep their love secret from a third party (Emily parallel). Finally, try Valerie Taylor's Whisper Their Love because, written in 1957 as pulp fiction, it tells the story of two women who are sexually attracted to each other, but is careful not to sensationalize the sex acts by only subtlely alluding to them, as a main element in Odd Girl Out.
Red Flags: None
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