INTRODUCTION BY VICTOR J. BANIS

In 1963, Fresno publishers Sanford Aday and Wallace de Ortega Maxey were sentenced
to 25 years in federal prison for distributing obscene material, the material in question
being a line of gay-themed paperback novels.
     In 1964, I was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute obscene material,
this material being my first novel, The Affairs of Gloria (Brandon House, 1964), which had
no sexually explicit words or phrases, but did contain one "damn," and, more to the point,
a couple of very tepid lesbian scenes.
     Clearly, in the early sixties, the U. S. Government thought that writing about or publishing
books depicting homosexual behavior, male or female, was in and of itself obscene, and
they meant to stamp it out. That is not to say that there had not been books before which
addressed the subject of homosexuality. The publishing world of the time did not have a
specific code, like the Hayes code in Hollywood, but there was a sort of tacit understanding
that homosexual characters must be portrayed as naughty, naughty people, doing wicked,
wicked things, for which they must be punished by the final chapter, either by death or by a
miraculous conversion to heterosexuality. A publisher portrayed homosexuals in a positive
light, or gave them happy endings, at his own peril, as Misters Aday and Maxey—and I—had
sadly learned. I had ten years in federal prison hanging over my head; not the cheeriest of
prospects for a young, pretty (if I do say so myself) and certainly effeminate gay man.
     I was acquitted (on a technicality) of the charges brought against me, but I continued for
several years to be the target of governmental harassment. My mail, e.g., was routinely
opened and left at my doorstep atop the envelopes, so I would be sure to know that it had
been read. Yes, Virginia, it is illegal.
     Surely, in bringing charges against me for what they certainly knew was my first novel,
the governmental censors must have intended in part to discourage from writing any more.
The irony of all this is that Gloria had been written on a whim, as a lark, really—the old, "Gosh,
I could do this," business. Probably, I would never have gone on to write any more books in
this vein. It was my ambition to be a "serious" writer (I don't think I know now what that is) when
I grew up (I don't know now what that is, either.)
     I was outraged, however, by what had been done and was still being done to me, and to the
constitutional guarantee of free speech, and being bullheaded by nature, I thought—perhaps
a bit foolishly, in retrospect—that I would "show them." Far from being dissuaded from writing
more sexy paperbacks, I felt obligated to give it a few more whirls.
     The problem was, though I had many friends who were lesbians, I personally was not, and so
the books I could write in that vein were unhappily akin to the faux-lesbian books popular then
and mostly written by heterosexual males for the pleasure of other heterosexual males.
     What I wanted to write were gay novels; and after the Aday and Maxey convictions, there was
little enthusiasm on the part of publishers for material of that sort; and the potential popular gay
market had not yet been tapped. "Who would buy them?" publishers asked repeatedly.
     Undeterred, I wrote my gay novel, The Why Not, and after a time it fortunately landed on the
desk of Earl Kemp at Greenleaf Classics. Greenleaf had not done any gay material up till then,
and Earl himself was resolutely heterosexual and, as he himself has admitted, really quite
ignorant of the gay world and especially of gay fiction. He was, however, an iconoclast, and
firmly committed to battering down the barriers to sexual expression in print, and he was happy
to take on the anti-homosexual forces as well. Greenleaf published The Why Not, it sold well,
and got good reviews, and Earl indicated that he was amenable to seeing something more.
      By this time, however, I had become a gay activist, and I now began to look askance at that
sad-young-men school of gay writing, in which, I regretted to admit, I included The Why Not.
When I read it again, I was dismayed to realize that there was simply not a single happy
character or incident in the book. All was gloom and doom. Now, it is true, gay life in those
early years could be painful, burdensome, and dangerous; but in dwelling exclusively on those
aspects of our society, I thought those books, mine included, were essentially dishonest. I
decided that I wanted to write a book about a happy homosexual who remained happy, and
alive, and gay, in the final chapter.
     The result was The Man From C. A. M. P., a spy spoof featuring agent Jackie Holmes
who worked for a super secret organization, C. A. M. P., dedicated to the protection and
advancement of homosexuals everywhere. I think Earl Kemp must have blinked and gasped
when I sent him the manuscript. I am convinced that there was not another editor in the U. S. of A.
at that time who would even have considered publishing that novel; but gamely publish it,
Earl did, and the rest is truly a part of gay history.
     Gays responded to this new kind of offering with rabid enthusiasm. The book sold
phenomenally well, so much so that an entire series of books followed, eight more Jackie
Holmes adventures, and several spin offs.
     More importantly, having seen that the market was far greater than anyone heretofore had
imagined, and that gays were enthusiastically receptive to books that portrayed them in a
positive light, Earl and Greenleaf published over the next several years a variety of gay material
in just about any genre imaginable: mysteries and histories and comedies and sci-fi and adventure
and cowboys and sailors – the whole gamut of gay experience. Many of them were written by me
or by writers that I trained, and for whom I became a de facto agent. It was joked in the industry
that the gay publishing revolution had mostly happened around my kitchen table, and there was
more than a little truth in the statement. At one time, some seventy five to eighty percent of the
gay novels being published were written by me or my protégés.
     In short order, other publishers became aware that Greenleaf was making lots of money catering
to this "new" market, and they soon enough jumped on the bandwagon, and the gay publishing
revolution was truly and irrevocably launched. In the ten years leading up to 1966, when The Why Not
appeared, there were only a few dozen genuinely gay novels published. In the decade that followed,
there were thousands—some say as many as ten thousand. A revolution indeed.
     Of course, the C. A. M. P. books were only a small part of my output—there were only nine of them
in all, though there was a tenth published by Greenleaf after I had moved on, written by someone else.
I wrote in all somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty books, under a variety of pen
names. For simplicity's sake, I have chosen to use my own name on all of the books listed here. With
few exceptions, these old gay novels were written quickly, no more than a week or so invested in any
of them, which is to say, they were done in one draft; and I was a young man and a novice writer at
the time, just starting out on what has proven to be a far longer career than I would have imagined then.
They were none of them meant to be literary masterpieces, and I am surprised when I read one or the
other of them today to find how well some of them read, all things considered. I ask your indulgence,
however, for their warts and blemishes.
     I should like to add a few words about Greenleaf Classics and about Earl Kemp in particular, since
over the years, both have taken some brickbats from other writers, often unfairly, in my opinion.
Greenleaf did buy many of its books outright; some writers afterward complained of what they saw
as this injustice, though I am not aware that any arms were twisted to persuade them to endorse the
checks they received. When The Song of the Loon was recently reissued by Arsenal Pulp Press, the
book included—unwisely, in my opinion—some pieces in which Richard Amory aka Richard Love
pilloried the publisher and Earl. I thought they reflected rather more poorly on Amory than they did on
Earl, and rather cheapened his legacy.
     I did receive legitimate contracts on some (not all) of the books I did for Greenleaf, and often
worked closely with Earl on rewrite. He was and remains a good friend, one to whom I am deeply
indebted, as I think every gay writer who has come down the pike since then is as well, and I believe
that he is one of the true heroes of gay history, if, alas, an unsung one.
     That history, however, is still being written, and I am grateful as well to Bill Warner and
GLB Publishers for adding to it with this project and for the opportunity to make a few of my early
efforts once again available. I hope that you enjoy them. In the end, I think that is really what every
writer writes for.
     Well, of course, none of us objects to making a dollar now and again.

Victor J. Banis

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