Women's Barracks by Tereska Torrès

Women's Barracks
by Tereska Torrès
Pages: 256
Date: May 1 2005 (originally published 1950)
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY (originally published by Fawcett Gold Medal)

Review:
3.0 out of 5.0
Read: March 3 to March 6 2014

This was a difficult book to read.  And not because of writing style or writing ability. Nor because it was among the first lesbian books put out.  A "based on true events" one at that.

No, the problem was both the distanced nature of the narration, and the subject matter.  As in, the book was narrated from the point of view of the writer.  Who was both a character in the book, and someone who knew what ultimately happened to everyone.  As a character, she was off to the edge, mostly, reporting on the actions of the others.  And the subject matter problem?  Well . . . one of the early attacks on homosexual activity involves trying to link it to pedophiles.  And that, pedophiles, plays a rather large role in the book. Much more so than lesbianism.

War erupts.  Many French women escape to England, but wish to help, so they join the army, or whatever the military organization was called.   A woman of 34, one of the French woman exiles, uses her advanced experience and alluring nature to attract a 16 old girl into her bed.  And molests her.  The girl doesn't particularly like it but kept repeating to herself "I adore her."  Two other bits of evidence later emerges.  Claude, the woman of 34, in the past, had also done the same thing with a young boy.  And Claude's attraction to Ursula (the 16 year old)  abruptly ends when she realizes that Ursula is no longer a little girl but is now a woman.

Hmm. I was writing this off of notes I had made. Later I call Claude the 40 year old pedophile.  Ok, so the older woman is somewhere between 34 and 40.

As I said at the beginning, a difficult book for me to read, mostly read because of its place in the history of lesbian books.  I should probably note, I suppose, that the author/narrator was not a lesbian herself.  Which may have clouded her judgement of the activities she was witnessing.   There were lesbians in the book, and the narrator had a more narrow-minded view of them, despite those lesbians actually involving adult women in adult relationships.