The Sensualists by Ben Hecht (All Editions)

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The Sensualists, by Ben Hecht, co-author of The Front Page, was published by Messner in 1959 and reprinted by Dell. A seemingly happily married woman discovers that her husband is having an affair and learns that the singer Liza, the other woman, is a lesbian who uses men as camouflage.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Checklist dismissed it as highly sensational shock-stuff, not to be read after dark, while Kirkus credited Hecht's sympathy and understanding with saving it from pornography. Barbara Grier listed it in The Lesbian in Literature. It is a period example of the lesbian as a figure of menace, in a novel by a famous author from a mainstream publisher.