MOORE, HAL. _The Naked and the Fair._ pbo, Beacon, 1958, scv.
MOORE, PAMELA. _Chocolates for Breakfast._ Rinehart 1956, pbr Bantam 1957. Candid, shocking story of a young girl’s disintegration; the opening episodes involve her rejection by a teacher on whom she has a crush, and there are variant overtones in her prolonged friendship with a school roommate, Janet’s suicide being the spur which makes Courtney resolve to pull herself together.
MORELL, LEE. _Mimi._ pbo Beacon Books 1959. Unusually good evening waster about night-club and theatrical people, with both male and female homosexual episodes; handled with subtlety and lightness almost unknown in this publisher’s paperbacks.
+ MORGAN, CLAIRE. (pseud of Patricia Highsmith) _The Price of Salt._ Coward-McCann, 1952, pbr Bantam 1953, 1959. Fine novel of an affair between two very nice, very courageous, very well-adjusted women whose initial attraction becomes the mainspring of both their lives. The author does not use one single stereotype or cliche; this is probably _the_ American novel of the lesbian.
MORGAN, NANCY. _City of Women_, pbo Gold Medal 1952, 1959. Lesbian episodes in a novel of women living in barracks at Pearl Harbor.
MORLEY, IRIS. _The Proud Paladin._ N. Y. Morrow 1936. Lesbian content vague and doubtful, BAYOR and fco.
MORRO, DON. _The Virgin._ pbo Beacon 1955, released in 1959. scv.
MOSS, GEOFFREY. _That Other Love._ Doubleday, 1930. A long-continued affair between Phillida and an older friend breaks off because of the younger woman’s desire for children.
MOTLEY, WILLARD. _Knock on Any Door._ N. Y., Appleton-Century, 1947, pbr Signet 1953, (m).
+ MURDOCH, IRIS. _The Bell._ N. Y. Viking 1958, (m). A fine, occasionally funny novel of an Anglican lay church-community centers around Michael Meade, a man of honor, intelligence, and integrity—and a homosexual. His hopes of being ordained as a priest were destroyed when, as a schoolteacher, he became entangled with young Nick; Nick’s appearance at the community destroys Michael’s peace of mind thoroughly, and an obliquely handled relationship between Nick, Michael and a guileless youngster, Toby, spending the summer at the community, eventually destroys the community entirely. But it isn’t all gloom and doom; the level of the writing is highly competent, sometimes wildly hilarious, and through all his difficulties Michael is able to realize that eventually he will “experience again ... that infinitely extended requirement which one human being makes on another.” A book which emphasizes the triumph of love, and one of the recent best. ((Editor’s note; why are the best novels of male homosexuality written by women? Mesdames Renault and Murdoch are giving their best to the men. Is it a question of detachment?))