Victor J. Banis
Encyclopedia
Victor J. Banis is an American
author
, often associated with the first wave of west coast gay
writing. For his contributions he has been called "the godfather of modern popular gay fiction." He is openly
gay
.
, Victor J. Banis was the tenth of eleven children born to William and Anna Banis. As a small child, Banis moved with his family to Eaton, Ohio
, where he lived on a farm and finished high school in 1955. While still in grade school, he began writing Nancy Drew
-inspired mysteries featuring his classmate Carol Peters, now the writer Carol Cail. In his memoirs he writes about growing up in severe poverty.
On his own, he lived for a brief time in Birmingham, Alabama, before moving to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked in sales and floral design. In 1960 he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for 20 years and had his first literary success. He rapidly turned out a number of important novels, and he and his partner, Sam Dodson, collaborated on a number of nonfictional gay works as well as a few, generally insignificant novels. They also published magazines and edited for DSI, a Minneapolis publisher. Banis served as a tutor for various aspiring writers and acted as their de facto agent. He championed the early writing of mystery writer Joseph Hansen
, among others. In 1980, he moved to Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains, and then in 1985 to San Francisco, where he worked as a property manager. In 2004 he retired and took up residence in Martinsburg, West Virginia
. There he returned to writing full time.
Banis's first published work was a short story, "Broken Record," that appeared in the Swiss gay publication Der Kreis in 1963. His first long work of fiction was The Affairs of Gloria, a heterosexual romance with a few lesbian scenes inspired by the recent
popularity of novels with lesbian themes; it was published in 1964 by Brandon House, a Los Angeles paperback publisher. The novel was indicted by a federal grand jury in Sioux City, Iowa
, for conspiracy to distribute obscene
materials in a government scheme to crack down on materials deemed pornographic
. Although some of his co-defendants were found guilty, Banis himself was acquitted.
He continued to write both straight and bisexual novels for Brandon House, but incensed by government censorship
, he was increasingly drawn to depicting the struggling gay scene that was yet barely chronicled in American literature. His first significant work of fiction was the innovative novel The Why Not, 1966. A series of intertwining sketches of habitués of a Los Angeles gay bar, it was the first gay work published by a San Diego firm, Greenleaf Classics.
Finding the novel sold well, editor-in-chief Earl Kemp
asked Banis to submit other gay novels. Thus was born The Man from C.A.M.P.
, 1966. The success of the original novel was so great that Banis went on to write eight sequels, 1966-1968. The series is historically important for several reasons. It was the first gay mystery series, already five in number before George Baxt could follow up on his success with A Queer Kind of Death, also 1966. And the C.A.M.P. novels depicted what is probably the first openly out and joyfully unrestrained gay hero in American letters, the indomitable undercover agent Jackie Holmes.
Banis wrote under a number of pseudonyms for Greenleaf, Brandon House, and Sherbourne Press. They include Victor Jay, J. X. Williams, Jay Vickery, and others for his gay male pulp fiction works. However, upon the success of The Gay Haunt, 1970, published by Maurice Girodias in his Traveller’s Companion series, Banis moved away from the gay genre. He began writing heterosexual gothic romances, again under a variety of pseudonyms. Jan Alexander and Lynn Benedict were two of the most popular. In 1977 he moved into more mainstream publishing with a historical novel, This Splendid Earth, written under the byline V. J. Banis and published by St. Martin’s Press. Its success led to a sequel and opened doors at Warner Books
and Arbor House
. But by 1980 he was feeling burned out and ceased publishing.
In the early years of the new millennium, Banis found himself approached by various scholars seeking information about the history of gay publishing during those crucial years in the 1960s. Their number included Hubert C. Kennedy, Michael Bronski, Susan Stryker, Fabio Cleto, and Drewey Wayne Gunn. In 2004 Professor Cleto, of the university in Bergamo, Italy, contacted Haworth Books about republishing three of the early C.A.M.P. novels and convinced his own university to publish Banis’s memoirs, Spine Intact, Some Creases. In 2006 Bill Warner of GLB Press brought out a second trilogy of C.A.M.P. novels, and Michael Burgess of Wildside Press
began republishing others of Banis’s long out-of-print novels.
Banis began writing fiction once again. He appeared in a number of anthologies. Come This Way, a collection of new and some old stories along with excerpts from earlier novels, was published by Regal Crest in 2007 with an homage from Drewey Wayne Gunn. The same year, Wildside Press published Avalon, a heterosexual romance set in the 1940s through the 1970s, and Carroll and Graf published the gay western romance Longhorns, with an informative essay by Michael Bronski, his first new novels in more than thirty years.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, often associated with the first wave of west coast gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
writing. For his contributions he has been called "the godfather of modern popular gay fiction." He is openly
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
.
Life
Born in 1937 in Huntingdon County, PennsylvaniaHuntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Huntingdon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. In 2010, its population was 45,913.Huntingdon County was created on September 20, 1787, from part of Bedford County. Its county seat is Huntingdon.-Geography:According to the U.S...
, Victor J. Banis was the tenth of eleven children born to William and Anna Banis. As a small child, Banis moved with his family to Eaton, Ohio
Eaton, Ohio
Eaton is a city in and the county seat of Preble County, Ohio, United States. The population was 8,407 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
, where he lived on a farm and finished high school in 1955. While still in grade school, he began writing Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew is a fictional young amateur detective in various mystery series for all ages. She was created by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate book packaging firm. The character first appeared in 1930. The books have been ghostwritten by a number of authors and are published...
-inspired mysteries featuring his classmate Carol Peters, now the writer Carol Cail. In his memoirs he writes about growing up in severe poverty.
On his own, he lived for a brief time in Birmingham, Alabama, before moving to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked in sales and floral design. In 1960 he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for 20 years and had his first literary success. He rapidly turned out a number of important novels, and he and his partner, Sam Dodson, collaborated on a number of nonfictional gay works as well as a few, generally insignificant novels. They also published magazines and edited for DSI, a Minneapolis publisher. Banis served as a tutor for various aspiring writers and acted as their de facto agent. He championed the early writing of mystery writer Joseph Hansen
Joseph Hansen (writer)
Joseph Hansen was an American crime writer and poet, best known for a series of novels starring his most iconic creation, private eye Dave Brandstetter.-Life and works:...
, among others. In 1980, he moved to Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains, and then in 1985 to San Francisco, where he worked as a property manager. In 2004 he retired and took up residence in Martinsburg, West Virginia
Martinsburg, West Virginia
Martinsburg is a city in the Eastern Panhandle region of West Virginia, United States. The city's population was 14,972 at the 2000 census; according to a 2009 Census Bureau estimate, Martinsburg's population was 17,117, making it the largest city in the Eastern Panhandle and the eighth largest...
. There he returned to writing full time.
Writings
popularity of novels with lesbian themes; it was published in 1964 by Brandon House, a Los Angeles paperback publisher. The novel was indicted by a federal grand jury in Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City is a city in Plymouth and Woodbury counties in the western part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, a decline from 85,013 in the 2000 census, which makes it currently the fourth largest city in the state....
, for conspiracy to distribute obscene
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
materials in a government scheme to crack down on materials deemed pornographic
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
. Although some of his co-defendants were found guilty, Banis himself was acquitted.
He continued to write both straight and bisexual novels for Brandon House, but incensed by government censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
, he was increasingly drawn to depicting the struggling gay scene that was yet barely chronicled in American literature. His first significant work of fiction was the innovative novel The Why Not, 1966. A series of intertwining sketches of habitués of a Los Angeles gay bar, it was the first gay work published by a San Diego firm, Greenleaf Classics.
Earl Kemp
Earl Kemp is an American science fiction editor, critic, and fan who won a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 1961 for Who Killed Science Fiction, a collection of questions and answers with top writers in the field. In 2011 a book edition of Who Killed Science Fiction was published by The Merry...
asked Banis to submit other gay novels. Thus was born The Man from C.A.M.P.
The Man from C.A.M.P.
The Man from C.A.M.P. is a series of ten gay pulp fiction novels published under the pseudonym of Don Holliday. The original nine were written by Victor J. Banis between 1966 and 1968; a tenth by an uncertain author appeared in 1971. The series first emerged during a period when gay paperback...
, 1966. The success of the original novel was so great that Banis went on to write eight sequels, 1966-1968. The series is historically important for several reasons. It was the first gay mystery series, already five in number before George Baxt could follow up on his success with A Queer Kind of Death, also 1966. And the C.A.M.P. novels depicted what is probably the first openly out and joyfully unrestrained gay hero in American letters, the indomitable undercover agent Jackie Holmes.
Banis wrote under a number of pseudonyms for Greenleaf, Brandon House, and Sherbourne Press. They include Victor Jay, J. X. Williams, Jay Vickery, and others for his gay male pulp fiction works. However, upon the success of The Gay Haunt, 1970, published by Maurice Girodias in his Traveller’s Companion series, Banis moved away from the gay genre. He began writing heterosexual gothic romances, again under a variety of pseudonyms. Jan Alexander and Lynn Benedict were two of the most popular. In 1977 he moved into more mainstream publishing with a historical novel, This Splendid Earth, written under the byline V. J. Banis and published by St. Martin’s Press. Its success led to a sequel and opened doors at Warner Books
Hachette Book Group USA
Hachette Book Group is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the second largest publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from...
and Arbor House
Arbor House
Arbor House was an independent publishing house founded by Donald Fine in 1969. Specialising in hard cover publications, Arbor House published works by Hortense Calisher, Ken Follett, Cynthia Freeman, Elmore Leonard and Irwin Shaw before being acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 1979 to move into...
. But by 1980 he was feeling burned out and ceased publishing.
In the early years of the new millennium, Banis found himself approached by various scholars seeking information about the history of gay publishing during those crucial years in the 1960s. Their number included Hubert C. Kennedy, Michael Bronski, Susan Stryker, Fabio Cleto, and Drewey Wayne Gunn. In 2004 Professor Cleto, of the university in Bergamo, Italy, contacted Haworth Books about republishing three of the early C.A.M.P. novels and convinced his own university to publish Banis’s memoirs, Spine Intact, Some Creases. In 2006 Bill Warner of GLB Press brought out a second trilogy of C.A.M.P. novels, and Michael Burgess of Wildside Press
Wildside Press
Wildside Press is an independent publishing company located in Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1989 by John Gregory and Kim Betancourt. While the press was originally conceived as a publisher of speculative fiction in both trade and limited editions, it has broadened out somewhat since then, both...
began republishing others of Banis’s long out-of-print novels.
Banis began writing fiction once again. He appeared in a number of anthologies. Come This Way, a collection of new and some old stories along with excerpts from earlier novels, was published by Regal Crest in 2007 with an homage from Drewey Wayne Gunn. The same year, Wildside Press published Avalon, a heterosexual romance set in the 1940s through the 1970s, and Carroll and Graf published the gay western romance Longhorns, with an informative essay by Michael Bronski, his first new novels in more than thirty years.
List of selected works
- "Broken Record," in Der Kreis, 1963, by Victor J. Banis - short story
- "David Victorious," in One magazine, 1963, by Victor J. Banis - poem
- The Affairs of Gloria (Brandon House, 1964) by Victor Jay - novel
- The Why Not (Greenleaf Classics, 1966; Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - novel
- The Man from C.A.M.P. (Leisure Books, 1966) by Don Holliday; included in That Man from C.A.M.P. - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 1)
- Color Him Gay (Leisure Books, 1966) by Don Holliday; (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 2)
- The Watercress File (Leisure Books, 1966) by Don Holliday - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 3)
- The Son Goes Down (Leisure Books, 1966) by Don Holliday; included in That Man from C.A.M.P. - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 4)
- Gothic Gaye (Leisure Books, 1966) by Don Holliday; e-book (GLB Publishers, 2006) by Victor J. Banis; included in Tales from C.A.M.P. - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 5)
- Good-bye My Lover (Sundown Reader, 1966) by J. X. Williams; e-book (GLB Publishers, 2006); Goodbye, My Lover (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - murder mystery
- Rally Round the Fag (Ember Library 1967) by Don Holliday; e-book (GLB Publishers, 2006) by Victor J. Banis; included in Tales from C.A.M.P. - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 6)
- The Gay Dogs (Ember Library, 1967) by Don Holliday; (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 7)
- Holiday Gay (Phenix Companion Books, 1967) by Don Holliday; included in That Man from C.A.M.P. - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 8)
- Stranger at the Door (Late Hour Library, 1967) by Don Holliday; (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - novel
- Three on a Broomstick (Adult Books, 1967) by Don Holliday - novel
- Sex and the Single Gay (Leisure Books, 1967) by Don Holliday - advice
- Blow the Man Down (Late Hour Library, 1968) by Don Holliday; (GLB Publishers, 2006), e-book by Victor J. Banis; included in Tales from C.A.M.P. - mystery (C.A.M.P. # 9)
- Brandon’s Boy (Adult Books, 1968) by Jay Vickery; The Greek Boy (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - novel
- Man into Boy (Adult Books, 1968) by Jay Vickery - science fiction
- Gay Treason (Ember Library, 1968) by J. X. Williams - World War II romance
- Homo Farm (Brandon House, 1968) by Victor Jay; Kenny’s Back Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - mystery
- Friar Peck and His Tale (Greenleaf Classics, 1969), published anonymously - novel
- The Gay Haunt (The Other Traveller, 1970) by Victor Jay; (Traveller’s Companion, 1972; Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - supernatural novel
- Shadows (Lancer BooksLancer BooksLancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...
, 1970) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance - The Wolves of Craywood (Lancer Books, 1970) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- House of Fools (Lancer Books, 1971) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- The Second House: A Novel of Terror (Beagle Books, 1971) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- White Jade (Popular Library, 1971) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- The Devil’s Dance (Avon, 1972) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- House at Rose Point (Avon, 1972) - gothic romance
- The Girl Who Never Was (Lancer Books, 1972) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- The Glass House (Popular Library, 1972) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- The Glass Painting (Popular Library, 1972) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- Moon Garden (Popular Library, 1972) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- The Bishop’s Palace (Popular Library, 1973) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- Darkwater (Pocket Books, 1975) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- The Haunting of Helen Wren (Pocket Books, 1975; Thorndike Press, 2004) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- Blood Ruby (Ballantine, 1975) by Jan Alexander; (Thorndike Press, 2004) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- The Sword and the Rose (Pyramid Books, 1975) by Victor Banis; (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis - novel
- The Lion’s Gate (Berkley Medallion, 1976) by Jan Alexander; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - gothic romance
- Green Willows (Pocket Books, 1977; Thorndike Press, 2004) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- This Splendid Earth (St. Martin’s Press, 1978; Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - historical romance
- Blood Moon (Lancer Books, 1979) by Jan Alexander - gothic romance
- The Earth and All It Holds (St. Martin’s Press, 1980; Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - historical romance
- The Moonsong Chronicles (Pinnacle, 1981) by Jessica Stuart - Moonsong Chronicles # 1
- A Westward Love (Warner, 1981) by Elizabeth Monterey; (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - romance
- San Antone (Arbor House, 1985; Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - western romance
- Spine Intact, Some Creases: Remembrances of a Paperback Writer (ECIG, 2004) by Victor J. Banis, edited with an introduction by # Fabio Cleto; revised (Wildside Press, 2007) - memoirs
- That Man from C.A.M.P.: Rebel without a Pause (Harrington Park Press, 2004) by Victor J. Banis, edited with an introduction and an interview by Fabio Cleto - anthology (three novels)
- Tales from Camp: Jackie’s Back (GLB Publishers, 2006) by Victor J. Banis, with an interview and checklist by Drewey Wayne Gunn - anthology (three novels)
- Avalon (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - romance
- Longhorns (Carroll & Graf, 2007) by Victor J. Banis, with a foreword by Michael Bronski - western romance
- Come This Way (Regal Crest Enterprises, 2007) by Victor J. Banis, edited by Lori L. Lake with a foreword by Drewey Wayne Gunn - collection of short fiction
- The Wolves of Craywood (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - supernatural romance
- The Devil's Dance (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - supernatural romance
- The Astral: Till the Day I Die (Wildside Press, 2007) by V. J. Banis - supernatural romance
- Life and Other Passing Moments (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis, edited by Robert Reginald - collection of short fiction
- Drag Thing (Wildside Press, 2007) by Victor J. Banis
- Lola Dances (ManLoveRomance Press, 2008) by Victor J. Banis
External links
- http://www.victorjbanis.com Gay History Writers' Project website page for Victor J. Banis
- http://www.wildsidepress.com/ The Wildside Press official website
- http://efanzines.com/EK/ The efanzines website
- http://www.mlrpress.com/ The ManLoveRomance Press official website