Pulp. Robin Talley

      

      In 1955, eighteen-year-old Janet Jones keeps the love she shares with her best friend Marie a secret. It’s not easy being gay in Washington, DC, in the age of McCarthyism, but when she discovers a series of books about women falling in love with other women, it awakens something in Janet. As she juggles a romance she must keep hidden and a newfound ambition to write and publish her own story, she risks exposing herself—and Marie—to a danger all too real.

      Sixty-two years later, Abby Zimet can’t stop thinking about her senior project and its subject—classic 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. Between the pages of her favorite book, the stresses of Abby’s own life are lost to the fictional hopes, desires and tragedies of the characters she’s reading about. She feels especially connected to one author, a woman who wrote under the pseudonym “Marian Love,” and becomes determined to track her down and discover her true identity.

      In this novel told in dual narratives, New York Times bestselling author Robin Talley weaves together the lives of two young women connected across generations through the power of words. A stunning story of bravery, love, how far we’ve come and how much farther we have to go.

      ROBIN TALLEY is the author of the highly acclaimed Lies We Tell Ourselves, which was a New York Times bestseller, as well as What We Left Behind, As I Descended and Our Own Private Universe. Robin lives in Washington, DC, with her wife and their daughter. You can find her on the web at www.robintalley.com or on Twitter, @robin_talley.

       Also by Robin Talley

      LIES WE TELL OURSELVES

      WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND

      AS I DESCENDED

      OUR OWN PRIVATE UNIVERSE

       Copyright

      An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

      Copyright © Robin Talley 2018

      Robin Talley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9781474069564

      To the rich community of queer writers, editors and publishers

      who changed the world so many times over and are still changing it today.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       About the Author

       Booklist

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Who’s Who and What’s What

       Acknowledgments

       Extract