#three women

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Sylvia Plath, from The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath; "Three Women,"

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— Sylvia Plath, from “Three Women.”

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I should have murdered this, that murders me.

Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems; from ‘Three Women’

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Anne Magill (b.1962, British) ~ The Three, 2020. Charcoal and wash on board.

[Source: Sotheby's]

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Sissy Spacek & Shelley Duvall in Three Women (1977)

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Three Women (Ernst Lubitsch, 1924)

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I am calm. I am calm. It is the calm before something awful: the yellow minute before the wind walks, when the leaves. Turn up their hands, their pallors. It is so quiet here.

Sylvia Plath, from Three Women

[mournfulroses]

Sylvia Plath, from The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath; "Three Women,"

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Three Women, episode 1x06 - "Climax"

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Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems; from 'Three Women'

TEXT ID: See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks. I cannot contain it. I cannot contain my life.

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Lola Kirke

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Steamy Saturday

We hold a considerable collection of pre-1970s romance pulp fiction, including queer romances and nurse romances. So, over the next several weeks we will be highlighting some of these titles with their suggestive covers and provocative blurbs.

For Pride Month, we begin the series with March Hasting's Three Women published by Beacon Books, an imprint of Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp., in 1958. The storyline is classic 1950s lesbian romance fiction: a young woman (Paula Temple) meets mister right (Phil Carson), but soon falls for Phil's wealthy aunt Bryne, an artist who lives in Greenwich Village, who herself is in a relationship with another artist, Greta. So many entanglements, you need a flow chart to keep track!

Here, the cover art offers stereotypical 1950s butch/femme imagery, while sensationalist language entices the reader: "An intimate picture of women in love -- with each other!"; "A courageous excursion into a forbidden world."; "Phil Carson strove with all his strength and virility to rescue Paula from unnatural desire." In the end (spoiler!), tragedy befalls both Bryne and Greta, while Paula, not surprisingly, returns to Phil. This is not the ending Hastings, one of the pseudonyms for lesbian pulp fiction writer Sally Singer (b. 1930), wanted for her story, as it did not reflect her own lived experience. Wikipedia quotes Singer as saying,

I really had no choice in the matter. . . . We all know the publishing climate in those days: same sex affection is out of the mainstream loop in this country, therefore, give it to us overtly for fun and games (hetero titillation) but make sure you tack on an ending of misery, punishment, sadness—that was the commercial voice, loud and distinct.

When Naiad Press republished Three Women in the late 1980s, Singer rewrote the optimistic ending for her characters that she always intended. "I don't believe in sadness," Singer said.

View other pulp fiction posts.

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Three Women (Ernst Lubitsch, 1924)