Cold War Pulp: Gender And Fiction In The Age Of Liberation

The early decades of the twentieth century saw incredible changes in both literacy and general publishing. Once literature had been the domain of the elite, but now it was the daily pleasure of compeople. The changes in American culture in the middle of the century, combined with this revolution in publishing and literacy, combined to produce texts frequently referred to as pulp-fiction, works easily and cheaply produced for a mass-market. This market actively catered to diverse interests, perhaps most significantly the sexually alienated. Works of gay and feminist pulp fiction served to show alienated gay men and women, as well as independent women working to escape the confines of patriarchal society, that they were not alone and that their desires were not morally profane. Two such works that represent the ethos of this body of fiction are Erica Jong\u27s fear of flying and Jay Greene\u27s behind these walls