Banis, Victor J. Lola Dances.
Albion, NY: ManLoveRomance Press, c2008. 232p. ISBN 978-1934531426. Soft cover. $16.99.
This is a delightful romantic tale of the old West, sort of a 19th century Brokeback Mountain with less angst and a happy ending. There is lots of violence and lots of sex, tastefully described. If your library collects romance novels, then you should consider this for your gay romance collection.
The author is a master storyteller and he should be, having published more than 150 novels. Thomas L. Long, editor of the Harrington Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly, has called him “the godfather of modern gay popular fiction” (Banis’ Wikipedia entry). Old timers may remember his popular C.A.M.P. series of mystery novels from 1966-1968; the first of what became a major subgenre. He stopped writing after 1980, but luckily for us he has now resumed. His recent novel Longhorns, another Western romance (Carroll & Graf 2007) includes an essay by Michael Bronski charting his decades of literary contributions.
Lola is transgendered, beginning life as a small effeminate boy in the slums of New York’s Lower East Side. After he is raped by a high society aristocrat, he and his older brother escape to the mining camps of the West. There he begins to dance as a woman and ends up famous in San Francisco where he stumbles upon his first love from the Lower East Side. For the rest, read the novel!
Reviewed by James D. Anderson
Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science
Rutgers University
Dear Dr. Anderson,
Thank you sincerely for taking the time to read and review my novel, and for your kind words. It took Lola quite a while to convince me to do this book, as I did not think I was the one to write it (I’m not a cross dresser and know little about that experience) – but I am glad after all that she persuaded me, and I confess I loved my little Terry/Lola. Life is especially hard for the “sissies.” I hope Lola makes one or two of them feel better about themselves.
Victor J. Banis