Masculinity in Lesbian "Pulp" Fiction: Disappearing Heteronormativity?

This book looks specifically and in depth, for the first time, at masculinity in cheap, lesbian-themed paperbacks of the two decades after WW2. It challenges established critical assumptions about the readership, and sets the masculinity imagined in these novels against the “masculinity crisis” of the era in which they were written.

The key issue of these novels is couplehood as much as sexuality, and the instability of masculinity leads to the instability of the couple. Thompson coins the t...