Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
Tereska Torres -- author of 1950s lesbian pulp novel "Women's Barracks" -- talks about the ladies of the Free French Forces, shocking American audiences, and being mistaken for a "lesbian writer."
Aug 9, 2005 | On the cover of "Women's Barracks," a handful of half-clad ladies are crowded into a room, dressing themselves, nary a man in sight. We are, after all, in the women's barracks. One, a blonde wearing a pointy soldier's cap and a full-coverage bra, zips up her skirt with a cigarette dangling from her lips. In the corner, wrapped in a towel -- or is that a negligee? -- a thin brunette rubs cream onto her face. Smack in the middle, a voluptuous redhead bends over, pulling up a pant leg and making eyes at the fully dressed, smoking female officer who's making eyes right back at her. Smoking indeed!
And not so subtle. Even in 1950, when Fawcett's Gold Medal, the first American paperback imprint, published "Women's Barracks," it was clear that this was not typical dime-store fare. Billed as "the frank autobiography of a French girl soldier," the book promised the true-life account of what had transpired in the London barracks for the women of World War II's Free French Forces, through the eyes of its young author, Tereska Torres.
Americans must have been hurting for information on the habits of notoriously sexual French women left to their own devices, because "Women's Barracks," known today as the first lesbian pulp, quickly became the first paperback original bestseller, despite the best efforts of some officials. An American congressional committee on "current pornographic materials" examined it as an example of perversion, but publishers were able to avoid censorship by arguing that it actually taught "moral lessons" about the "problem" of lesbianism. A Canadian court, on the other hand, concluded after two days of deliberations that it didn't educate, but encouraged girls to go down that wayward path, and ruled it obscene. Still, these stern chastisements had little effect on the book's soaring popularity -- "Women's Barracks" sold 2 million copies in its first five years; to date, it has sold 4 million copies.
This summer, the Feminist Press is reissuing "Women's Barracks" as the first offering in its "Women Write Pulp" series. While reprints of the book have featured newer covers (my personal favorite is a 1970s edition showcasing two leggy, shaggy-haired femme fatales in oversize green Army shirts -- clearly not the regulation uniform of the 1940s Free French Forces), this latest edition carries the original, long considered a classic image of lesbian fiction.
Yet what's "lesbian" about "Women's Barracks" isn't just its candid depictions of sex. To be sure, Torres isn't shy about discussing "strange caresses" or "small pointed breasts," but that's only half the story. She doesn't just record what women do with each other, but what they say to each other: how they relate as lovers and friends, allies and enemies; how they think about the "real Lesbians" and the "normal women ... who play at such games"; how they admire, disregard and sleep with men; how they cope with liberated spirits and unwanted pregnancies. Torres gives readers both pulpy lesbian lust and an honest story about real women -- shy, fragile Ursula; mature and worldly Claude; the funny and plucky Mickey; proud and beautiful man-crazy Jacqueline; tough, butch Anne -- as they see themselves and each other.
Today, Torres is lauded as a "lesbian writer." But, as she told me when we spoke on the phone, that's news to her. In fact, she says, she prefers the published version of her wartime diary, released in France as "Free French," to the fictionalized "Women's Barracks." And she is much more interested in what she's doing now than in what she did 50 years ago. At 84, she is still publishing and traveling the world, dividing her time among homes in Paris, California and New Jersey. We spoke about writing, politics and the differences between Americans and the French.
How did "Women's Barracks" come about?
Meyer Levin, who I married later, was a war correspondent in London during the war, and an old friend of my parents. He used to take me out for dinner and lunches while I was in the Free French Forces, and he was in the American Army. And as he was a writer, I was always telling him stories about what was happening in the barracks at the time I was living there. He was always very interested in my stories. After the war, in 1948, we got married, and he always was telling me, "Why don't you write the story about what happened in London during the war when you were a soldier in the French army?" And I had written it all in my diary, but he was always saying, no, no, no, make a novel.
And how was it received?
I remember first of all the book came out in America when I was still in Paris. I was overwhelmed by the idea that they had published 200,000 copies of it. I couldn't believe it. And I went to see this man at Fawcett. Nobody said "lesbian" to me, nobody mentioned it. All I knew is that they all said it was terribly shocking, and I didn't know why they said that. I thought I had written a very innocent book. I thought, these Americans, they are easily shocked.
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