{"product_id":"in-thrall-by-jane-delynn","title":"In Thrall by Jane DeLynn","description":"\u003cp\u003eA touchstone novel of lesbian adolescence, set years before gay liberation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Dear Miss Maxfield ... what I'm really afraid of is that I am a homosexual human being. I wish you were one too but I don't think it's possible there could be so many in one school, do you?--probably there is only one person who is homosexual in one place at one time and that one person (I am afraid) is me ...\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in 1982 and set prior to Stonewall, Jane DeLynn's \u003ci\u003eIn Thrall\u003c\/i\u003e is a touchstone narrative of lesbian adolescence. \u003ci\u003ePublishing Triangle\u003c\/i\u003e called it one of the \"best gay and lesbian novels of all time.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter sixteen-year-old Lynn writes her thirty-seven-year-old English teacher a letter, they embark on one of the funniest--and saddest--love affairs in fiction, shrouded in secrecy and guilt. Years before gay liberation, all Lynn knows about \"lezbos\" is that they wear their hair in crew cuts, buy suits like her father's, and sprout mustaches over their upper lips. Trying to pass as \"normal,\" Lynn continues to neck with her boyfriend and make homophobic jokes with her friends. Feigning innocence with her parents, she checks the mirror for telltale signs of \"perversion\" each night.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProfound, witty, poignant, and highly charged, \u003ci\u003eIn Thrall\u003c\/i\u003e has been compared to \u003ci\u003eThe Catcher in the Rye\u003c\/i\u003e and to Edmund White's \u003ci\u003eA Boy's Own Story\u003c\/i\u003e. \"The single most wonderful quality of this novel,\" the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e writes, \"is its absolute credibility.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis new edition includes a foreword by Irish author Colm Tóibín.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"All Lynn's phobias, aversions, preferences, and hang-ups make her exaggerated but real and terrifically funny. The great triumph of this novel is that DeLynn has captured the way adolescents felt, talked, and behaved during the early 1960s.\"\u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"More humor, pain, honesty, and Weltschmerz than a dozen of her peers.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Felice Picano, \u003ci\u003eHarvard Gay \u0026amp; Lesbian Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Jane DeLynn's newly republished coming-of-age novel set in the pre-Stonewall '60s is comedic, haunting, and decidedly untidy.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Andrew Chan, \u003ci\u003e4Columns\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePaperback \/ 280 pages\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Bookish Type","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54940061958525,"sku":null,"price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0264\/0891\/0933\/files\/9781739516161.jpg?v=1733307708","url":"https:\/\/thebookishtype.pro\/products\/in-thrall-by-jane-delynn","provider":"The Bookish Type","version":"1.0","type":"link"}