BURT, STRUTHERS. Entertaining the Islanders. N. Y. Scribners, 1933. Sophisticated, satirical, novel in which a man becomes aware that his ex-sweetheart has been captivated by another woman.
+ BUSSY, DOROTHY. Olivia. (by Olivia). Wm. Sloane Associates, 1949, Berkley pbr 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959. An English schoolgirl, sent to boarding school in Paris, becomes an unwitting third party to a long-standing affair between Julie and Cara, the two schoolmistresses. Julie’s response to the girl, and Cara’s jealousy, and suicide, form the main events of the story, which is told with delicate restraint, after a retrospect of many years, as Olivia, now herself a lesbian, has come to understand the procession of events.
CAIN, JAMES M. Serenade. Knopf 1937, pbr Signet ca. 1953, (m).
CAINE, HALL. The Bondsman. R.F. Fenno & Co., ca. 1890; other editions available, frequently very cheap secondhand. Called a “Modern Saga”, this is laid in 18th-Century Iceland. Two half-brothers, Jason the Red and Michael Sunlocks, sons of the same man by different mothers, grow up knowing of one another’s existence, but unknown to each other personally. Through a series of saga-like coincidences, they fall in love with the same woman, and are eventually exiled together to the sulphur mines—Iceland’s prison colony—still unaware of each other’s real identity. There Jason undergoes a psychological and emotional upheaval which can only be described as “falling in love” with Michael, who is still known to him only as Prisoner A-25, not as his hated brother. This story is probably more explicit, emotionally, than[14] anything written before the 20th century and the freedom given by Freud to the emotions of novelists. Recommended.
The Deemster. Rand McNally, 1888, Chicago; D. Appleton, 1888; numerous other editions. (m). A glorified friendship between two cousins ends in murder.
CALDWELL, ERSKINE. Tragic Ground. Little, Brown & Co, 1944, pbr Signet 1948, fco.
CAPOTE, TRUMAN. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Random House 1958, pbr Signet 1959. In the story of a promiscuous, rather pathetic girl, a sadistic lesbian neighbor brings on violent events. Everything very subtle and indirect.
Other Voices, Other Rooms. Random House 1948, pbr Signet 1959. Young boy slowly falling under the influence of a decadent uncle who is a transvestite. Macabre.
CARCO, FRANCIS. Depravity. pbo Berkley 1957.
Infamy. pbo Berkley 1958.