SINCLAIR, JO. (pseud. of Ruth Seid) _Wasteland._ Harper Bros. 1946. This is the excellent and heavily lauded Harper prize novel of that year. Told on the psychiatrist’s couch, it concerns the failure of Jewish Jake Braunowitz to live up to his manhood ... which forces this job onto the shoulders of his sister Debbie, a lesbian. The psychiatrist discovers that he ran from his responsibilities in the first place due to feeling weaker than the masterful intelligent Debbie; then, after forcing her to take a man’s role in the family, he turns around and feels guilt and shame at her adjustment to the situation. Excellently done. SPEERS, MARY. _We Are Fires Unquenchable._ Murray and Gee, Hollywood 1946. fco. A badly written, almost illiterate novel, the first few scenes of which are laid in a girl’s college swarming with luridly treated lesbians and in an assortment of Bohemian settings. + SMITH, ARTEMIS. _Odd Girl._ Beacon pbo, 1959. The blurb reads “Life and love among warped women”, but don’t let it scare you. This is one of the better and more serious approaches to the writing of a serious novel of lesbians through the stereotyped pattern of the paperback novel. The basic plot concerns Anne, and her experiences in trying to find out for herself, the hard way, whether she is a lesbian or whether she can successfully adjust to life as a normal woman. The story ends with the surprising, but growingly popular affirmation that “adjustment” is not always to be desired at all costs. The cover also calls this a story of “society’s greatest curse”, meaning homosexuality; but for once it isn’t treated that way. _The Third Sex._ pbo, Beacon, 1959. Most of the remarks made above also apply to this one, though the heroine is Joan, a college girl who fears that she is becoming a lesbian, and fights it by redoubling her affairs with men. Slightly more sensational than “Odd Girl”, but well written, well thought out and generally excellent. SMITH, DOROTHY EVELYN. _The Lovely Day._ N. Y., Dutton, 1957. Interesting novel of an English village on a choir outing, contains a minor but funny account of an unconscious lesbian’s decisions. SMITH, SHELLEY. (pseud. of Nancy Bodington.) _The Lord Have Mercy_, Harper 1956, pbr tct _The Shrew is Dead_, Dell 1959. English mystery story; a major subplot involves a pair of lesbians. SNEDEKER, CAROLINE DALE. _The Perilous Seat._ Doubleday, Doran 1929, marginal (m) in a juvenile of ancient Greece; the hero, being sold into slavery, attempts to disfigure himself to escape “the fate of handsome boys among the Persians.” STAFFORD, JEAN. _Boston Adventure._ Harcourt, 1944.