The City and the Pillar, by Gore Vidal (Abacus, £6.99 in UK)

According to the blurb, this was the first, serious, American homosexual novel", though obviously there have been many since, …

According to the blurb, this was the first, serious, American homosexual novel", though obviously there have been many since, serious and unserious. It first came out in 1949 and purely as a novel is much better and more digestible than that over praised heterosexual shocker of the same postwar period, Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. This new edition is "complete and revised," suggesting that originally there were things which the censors, or the state of public opinion then, would not allow into print. It is not a masterpiece, but it is fluent and "cool" and easily readable, with an offhand, in the know air which must have been fetching for many readers. Much of the story is set on the West Coast and evokes the bars of LA and Seattle, as well as the Gay scene (fairly private in those days) of Hollywood and the movie community.