Review: By Flesh Alone

By Flesh Alone by March Hastings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Early lesbian pulp novels were often written by men, not the case here since this one was written in 1962 by Sally Singer using the pseudonym March Hastings. Singer wrote over 120 novels, plenty of them lesbian themed. Openly gay (bold for the times) she gives her novels some serious authenticity. Here she tells the story of Lila, a young woman bored with a dull marriage, who ditches her husband for a life as a Bohemian in early 1960s Greenwich Village. The Village was an epicenter for the Beat Generation at that time populated by artists and musicians, most of them flat broke and living in splendid squallor. The book is very well written, I don’t know how I’ve never heard of Singer before - she can really write, and serves as an interesting snapshot of life in the Village with adventure, romance, jealousy, and some fairly torrid (for the 1960s) lesbian sex.

Available from Cutting Edge Books. I read it in the Vintage Sleaze collection.