Spring Fire (Lesbian Pulp Fiction) [Paperback]

Vin Packer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lesbian Pulp Fiction | Publication Date: May 10, 2004

Spring Fire was the first lesbian pulp novel ever published. The original 1950s cover blared: "A story once told in whispers now frankly, honestly written." Shameless and seductive in an era when lesbian lives were hidden from view, Spring Fire chronicles the story of Leda and Mitch, two sorority sisters at a Midwestern university who stumble into a forbidden love affair. While their romance ends unhappily - in order to satisfy U.S. postal inspectors who would have seized shipments of a novel that affirmed lesbian love - Spring Fire touched the lives of countless lesbian and gay readers and cleared the way for the hundreds of lesbian pulps that were to come. This edition includes a new introduction by the author describing the story behind the novel's initial publication.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Still hot, still intense, still wholly involving." -- On Our Backs

"Without Spring Fire...there would never have been the Beebo Brinker chronicles, nor an author known as Ann Bannon." -- Ann Bannon, author of Beebo Brinker

"[Packer] wrote deftly within her boundaries, and produced a story that is both revolutionary in its content and defiantly steamy." -- Velvetpark Magazine, Winter 2005 Issue

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Press (May 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573441872
• ISBN-13: 978-1573441872
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #804,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sorority life, July 5, 2005

By 

Vin Packer "V.P," (N.Y.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spring Fire (Lesbian Pulp Fiction) (Paperback)

One of the things I love about this book is its depiction of sorority life. That is the real story here: the inside workings of rush week, pledge life etc. Of course the lesbian love story is very touching in the light of what's going on today. All in all this is a rich read.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful as social history, August 30, 2005

By 

David P. Caldwell (Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spring Fire (Lesbian Pulp Fiction) (Paperback)

It's a bit strange to evaluate this as literature, given that the author had to alter the novel to get it past censors (who the publisher believed would have stopped the book's distribution through the mail, apparently using a federal statute -- I'd speculate relating to obscenity -- if it had been found to proselytize for homosexuality). The alterations are half-baked -- you can almost see what the plot would have been anyway, and you can definitely see the parts grafted on that just don't fit the rest of the story. Whether the alterations were deliberately glaring (a wink-wink to the lesbian readership), or whether they were just the poor plot design of a young author, it's hard to say.

The portrayal of 1950s sorority life is a pretty dramatic side point, at least to a 21st-century reader (who, admittedly, still went to college in the 20th). The cliquishness and the sorority's singleminded pursuit of organizational status provide an interesting window into how timeless social maneuvering is (I associate it more with high school than college, but then I was not in the fraternity/sorority system). There's one character other than the protagonist who is a somewhat independent thinker who gets chewed up and spit out by the groupthink.

The love story is interesting as a study. This book was widely read by lesbians of the time; it's tempting to conclude this is a reasonably good portrayal of 1950s lesbianism. But it could be that no other portrayals were readily available. Or it could be that this is appealing as erotica, but is not realistic. In any case, the guilt and self-loathing one might expect are there in varying degrees amongst the characters. And the way that guilt and self-loathing probably make relationships more difficult (particularly when you're still exploring your sexual identity) rings true.

There's a guy who might be gay (that's what I got reading between the lines, but it's not addressed and not resolved), and is portrayed somewhat sympathetically, although most of the men portrayed are pigs. Female bisexuality is touched upon as well.

I've spent some time with lesbians, and I'm not sure whether this enhances my understanding of them or not. But it was fun to read as history, both of 1950s college and as a lesbian milestone. And it's a fast read, too, if that matters to you. Read the introduction after you read the book; it was written by the author about 50 years later and discusses things like the ending ... I like to read a book before I read someone else's critique (let alone the author's).

By the way, the seemingly-random title (it is revealed in the introduction) comes from the fact that James Michener's The Fires of Spring was coming out around the same time, and they hoped to sell some books via confusion.