Everything Beebo Brinker Eats and Drinks in the 1962 Lesbian Pulp Classic "Beebo Brinker"

Lately I’ve been rereading Ann Bannon’s Beebo Brinker chronicles and having a wonderful time. They’re forthright and punchy, like an early Nancy Drew book, and like the early Nancy Drew books the titular character drinks an absolutely astonishing quantity of milk. I know I ought to expect that; it’s from 1962. One of my favorite things to do is to read midcentury sex books and keep track of all the food everybody eats.¹

Beebo drinks milk for a few reasons: because she grew up on a farm, to establish that she’s still young and naive and not much of a drinker yet, and as an act of defiance when people make her uncomfortable. Leo, the husband of Beebo’s lover Venus, almost exclusively drinks orange juice. According to his son Toby, “That’s all Leo ever drinks. He says we’ve got orange trees in the yard and the juice is free. He likes things that are free. Besides, he’s always on a health kick. Right now it’s citric acid. When he’s home there’s always a mess of sticky glasses around.” Whenever he talks to Beebo, he puts down a recently-emptied orange juice glass to emphasize a point.²

The most exotic dish that shows up in Beebo Brinker (the fifth book published in the series but the first chronologically) is Italian food (as category, rather than a series of named dishes). Mostly, I’m sorry to say, it’s hamburgers and cigarettes, and will do very little to dispel popular conceptions about 1960s-era cuisine.

Three sandwiches in a train toilet:

“‘Yes. I ate three sandwiches in the rest room, on the train. That was yesterday.’”

Milk:

“Beebo drained her milk glass and put it on the table.”

Milk and cigarettes:

“‘My pleasure.’ He observed her through a scrim of cigarette smoke. ‘If I weren’t afraid of scaring hell out of you, I’d ask you over to my place for a drink,’ he said. She blanched. ‘I mean, a drink of milk,’ he said.”

Milk for Pat:

“Beebo got the chicken down Pat and made him drink his milk, which he did out of pure infatuation for her.”

Milk again:

“Pete folded his arms on the table and leaned on them, unoffended. ‘You want to be in that position too, Beebo?’

‘Not for a million bucks,’ she said, and drank down her milk in a gesture of scorn.”

At last, time for milk:

“She joined them, passing the milk around, and badgered Beebo to eat more than Beebo wanted. Toby couldn’t stand it.”

At last! A milk break:

He picked up his beer and the schnapps bottle, and she followed him into the living room. ‘You can drink all the milk you want, honey,’ he said, settling into a leather arm chair, ‘before the sun goes over the yardarm. After that, we switch to spirits.’”

Italian food, non-specified type:

“They sat down at the table and Jack told her, ‘This is the greatest Italian food you’ll ever eat. Pasquini on Thompson Street makes it up.’ He glanced up and found Beebo studying him. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t like pasta?’

‘Jack, have you ever been in love?’ she said.”

Spaghetti pickles:

“She got the hot spaghetti and, on a sudden inspiration, included a jar of kosher dills intended for a different customer.”

Two plates weiner schnitzel:

“‘Better to spend it on food,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what the hell, I’ll treat you. There’s some good Wiener schnitzel about a block back.’

They walked back to the German delicatessen, Beebo with a firm grip on her suitcase. She finished her meal in ten minutes. Jack ordered another for her, over her protests, kidding her about her appetite…The pneumatic little blonde waitress brought the second plateful.”

Beer and sausage:

“He bought some Dutch beer and sausage, paid the cashier, and walked with Beebo out the front door. On the pavement she stopped, swinging her wicker case around in front of her like a piece of fragile armor.”

Cigarette hamburger:

“Beebo doused her cigarette. “Can you eat all that hamburger by yourself?” she said, pointing at it.”

Just food:

“Toby grimaced at his mother, and Beebo handed her the carton of home-cooked food. ‘Here’s your dinner,’ she said. ‘Mrs. Pasquini appreciates all the orders.’”

What kind of food? It’s dinner. It’s Italian food. Don’t worry about it. Drink your milk.

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1. I particularly recommend doing this with John Rechy’s City of Night: “Finally we had finished, and the man places a cake before us, gives us a large portion. ‘And there’s ice cream!’ he announced joyously. ‘Vanilla?’ he asked. Pete said, ‘Chocolate.’ I took vanilla. ‘All boys love cake and ice cream,’ the man said knowingly, and by then I was enjoying it. I even ate more cake.”

2. The two of them have some very fun and extremely offensive “I’m-just-telling-it-like-it-is” confrontations in the back half of the book. During one of them, Beebo defends her position in Leo’s house — where, to be clear, she is posing as a horse trainer in order to have sex with his wife — by saying “I don’t feel so damned abnormal, thanks. I feel as normal as you do. I eat three meals a day, I pay my bills, I respect the other guy.” At no point in Beebo Brinker has Beebo Brinker ever paid her own bills. Her friend Jack lets him stay with her rent-free for a few months, after which she moves in with Venus, who immediately buys her a silver sports car.