Death of anger

Death of anger

159 pages

18 cm

Damon, Gene. "Death of Anger." Ladder, vol. 5, no. 12, September 1961, p. 23.

A sad novel about a man who marries a beautiful woman, only to discover too late that she is a Lesbian. Hedwig goes blindly into marriage not realizing her own feeling and her wedding night so unnerves her that she takes to her bed permanently. Most of the plot revolves about the husband’s effort to keep a young girl as his mistress. About 1/5 of the book describes Hedwig’s past, present and future. Neither sympathetic nor condemnatory.

Gutterman, Lauren Jae. "Another Enemy Within: Lesbian Wives, or the Hidden Threat to the Nuclear Family in Post-War America." Gender & History, vol. 24, no. 2, August 2012, pp. 475-501.

A man’s revolt from his sterile marriage to a beautiful lesbian

The events of our wedding night blew my marriage apart,' said Hugh Canning. Then, many arid nights later: 'That night I took her again. It was a fight, wrestling and gasping in the darkness, and, as if she knew how serious it was, as if the time to be ladylike was some weeks gone by, she did not scream once...Next morning she did not get out of bed. She didn't get out of bed the next day either, or the day after or for the next twelve years.' 'Allan Seager's novel is pointed and challenging, and written with the touch of artistry that characterized his earlier books...' -Tulsa World." -Back cover

A bed is diagonally placed at the bottom of the image, headboard to the right of the reader. A blond woman lies across it, her body sideways, to her left, except for her torso, which is turned to her right. She is wearing a long, yellow negligee, and has her hair loose at nape height. Her right hand extends to her right, and is posed on the waist of another woman, a brunette with loose hair to her shoulders. Her left arm is bent at the elbow, hand gesturing. Her legs bend at the knee and are close together. The brunette is standing by the bed, her back to the reader at a three-quarter angle facing right. She is wearing a white dress that looks like a nurse's uniform with short sleeves. Her head is turned to the right, eyes downward towards the blonde. Her arms are bent at the elbows as if holding something in her hands before her, unseen to the reader. To her front left stands a man in a suit who gazes at her with a stern look, arms extending downward to the sides of his body. There are flowers next to the bed, opposite to where he stands. The background, seemingly a wall, is a texture of browns, lilacs and grays. The bed sheets are orange-brown and white. The scene is lit from the front in a diffused light.