BOOKS
BY KAITE WELSH
Book of the Month
FICTION
PULP
Robin Talley
Robin Talley has cornered the market in “queer books we didn’t know we needed”, from falling in love against a backdrop of segregation in Lies We Tell Ourselves to the gripping As I Descended which relocates Macbeth to an American boarding school. Pulp sees her go from strength to strength with an interwoven narrative spanning two crucial eras in lesbian history. When modern teenager Abby discovers 1950s lesbian “pulp”, supposedly trashy novels that reveal the shocking existence of the “lavender menace”, she becomes obsessed with finding author Marian Love and proving that even then, lesbians could have happy endings. In 1955, Janet Jones is making her own discovery – that despite confusing feelings for her best friend, she isn’t alone. Both narratives could easily be novels in their own right, but the fusion of the two is both uplifting and heartbreaking in the best possible way.